Many monophagous animals have coevolutionary relationships with bacteria that provide
unavailable nutrients to the host. Frequently, these microbial partners are vertically inherited …

Leeches are found in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine habitats on all continents.
Sanguivorous leeches have been used in medicine for millennia. Modern scientific uses …

Microbial transmission through mucosal-mediated mechanisms is widespread throughout
the animal kingdom. One example of this occurs with Hirudo verbana, the medicinal leech …

The gut bacteria of the North American medicinal leech, Macrobdella decora, were
characterized. Biochemical tests and DNA sequences indicated that Aeromonas jandaei is …

Strictly blood-feeding leeches and their limited microbiota provide natural and powerful
model systems to examine symbiosis. Blood is devoid of essential nutrients and it is thought …

We characterized the intracellular symbiotic bacteria of the hematophagous glossiphoniid
leeches Placobdelloides siamensis and a Parabdella sp. These leeches have a specialized …

Mycetomal organs attached to the esophagus of hematophagous leeches which are known
to harbor endosymbiotic bacteria were removed from three species in the leech family …

Blood-feeding leeches of the genus Placobdella have acquired intracellular
alphaproteobacterial endosymbionts of the genus Reichenowia that potentially aid in the …

The evolutionary history of leeches is employed as a general framework for understanding
more than merely the systematics of this charismatic group of annelid worms, and serves as …

Culture-based studies of the microbial community within the gut of the medicinal leech have
typically been focused on various Aeromonas species, which were believed to be the sole …