{"doi":"10.3390/insects14060514","title":"Engineered Human Tissue as A New Platform for Mosquito Bite-Site Biology Investigations","abstract":"Vector-borne diseases transmitted through the bites of hematophagous arthropods, such as mosquitoes, continue to be a significant threat to human health globally. Transmission of disease by biting arthropod vectors includes interactions between (1) saliva expectorated by a vector during blood meal acquisition from a human host, (2) the transmitted vector-borne pathogens, and (3) host cells present at the skin bite site. Currently, the investigation of bite-site biology is challenged by the lack of model 3D human skin tissues for in vitro analyses. To help fill this gap, we have used a tissue engineering approach to develop new stylized human dermal microvascular bed tissue approximates—complete with warm blood—built with 3D capillary alginate gel (Capgel) biomaterial scaffolds. These engineered tissues, termed a Biologic Interfacial Tissue-Engineered System (BITES), were cellularized with either human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) or human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Both cell types formed tubular microvessel-like tissue structures of oriented cells (82% and 54% for HDFs and HUVECs, respectively) lining the unique Capgel parallel capillary microstructures. Female Aedes (Ae.) aegypti mosquitoes, a prototypic hematophagous biting vector arthropod, swarmed, bit, and probed blood-loaded HDF BITES microvessel bed tissues that were warmed (34–37 °C), acquiring blood meals in 151 ± 46 s on average, with some ingesting ≳4 µL or more of blood. Further, these tissue-engineered constructs could be cultured for at least three (3) days following blood meal acquisitions. Altogether, these studies serve as a powerful proof-of-concept demonstration of the innovative BITES platform and indicate its potential for the future investigation of arthropod bite-site cellular and molecular biology.","journal":"Insects","year":2023,"id":377026,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.955,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1140489,"name":"Mona Doshi","orcid":"0000-0003-4553-2054","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1140892,"name":"Andrew Philip Panarello","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1140893,"name":"Michael A. Felice","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1140490,"name":"Andrew K. Dickerson","orcid":"0000-0003-1220-1048","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":282575,"name":"Mollie W. Jewett","orcid":"0000-0003-3130-3795","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1140491,"name":"Bradley J. Willenberg","orcid":"0000-0001-7279-6907","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1140488,"name":"Corey Seavey","orcid":"0000-0001-5622-5792","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:16:36.370283Z","pmid":"37367330","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}