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 …

Abstract Background The bacterial family Enterobacteriaceae gave rise to a variety of
symbiotic forms, from the loosely associated commensals, often designated as secondary …

Genome reduction is pervasive among maternally-inherited endosymbiotic organisms, from
bacteriocyte-to gut-associated ones. This genome erosion is a step-wise process in which …

Endosymbiosis is a common phenomenon in nature, especially between bacteria and
insects, whose typically unbalanced diets are usually complemented by their obligate …

Strict blood-feeding animals are confronted with a strong B-vitamin deficiency. Blood-
feeding leeches from the Glossiphoniidae family, similarly to hematophagous insects, have …

Placobdella is a genus of blood-feeding leeches in the family Glossiphoniidae. Historically,
species of Placobdella have posed difficulty for systematists owing to a lack of informative …

It has been long known that insect-infecting trypanosomatid flagellates from the genera
Angomonas and Strigomonas harbor bacterial endosymbionts (Candidatus …

Haematophagous leeches express a broad variety of bioactive factors that are released from
the salivary gland cells into the wound of a host during feeding. Among these, hirudin is …

Parental care is uncommon within Annelida. However, a remarkable exception is in the
leech family Glossiphoniidae in which all its members keep their offspring attached to the …

Freshwater, marine, and terrestrial leeches that depend on a diet of fresh blood have
evolved salivary peptide components that inhibit normal thrombus formation by prey …