The project, which involved more than seventy international scientists, was led by Professor Barry Pittendrigh at the University of Illinois; Professor Evgeny Zdobnov at the University of Geneva Medical School and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics; and Professor Ewen Kirkness at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md.

 

UPI reports that the researchers said the human body louse (Pediculus humanus humanus) is an obligate human parasite responsible for the transmission of bacteria that cause relapsing fever, trench fever, and epidemic typhus. The scientists said their sequencing and comparative analysis of the body louse genome with other sequenced species revealed many features that will enhance science’s understanding of the relationship between disease-vector insects, the pathogens they transmit and affected human hosts.

The human body louse usually lives in clothing, and infestations are associated with wearing unwashed apparel for prolonged periods such as during wartime, natural disasters, or the often poor personal hygiene of homeless people or refugees, the scientists said.

As well as irritations from infestations with body lice or the closely related human head lice, the body louse may carry harmful bacteria that cause epidemic typhus and are classified as a bioterrorism agent.

-Read more in Ewen F. Kirkness et al., “Genome sequences of the human body louse and its primary endosymbiont provide insights into the permanent parasitic llifestyle,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (21 June 2010) (doi:10.1073/pnas.1003379107)