Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA

Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction forms the cornerstone for studies on Sarcoptes scabiei. Whilst the new science era took a shy leap into the different facets of mite studies, the cornerstone was almost entirely neglected. Mite collection, cleaning, storage and DNA extraction were, basically, humble attempts to extrapolate, adapt, modify or ‘pirate’ those existing methods to the peculiarities of Sarcoptes research. These aspects usually constituted few lines, bashfully mentioned, in the materials and methods section of some papers, which arose in unique problems concerning cost-effectiveness, time profitability, safety and even worse, the credibility of the results, creating contradictory conclusions in some cases. This ‘noisy’ situation encouraged us to collect, classify and review, for the first time to our knowledge, some aspects relating to studies on Sarcoptes mite from collection to DNA extraction, which will be useful for further studies on Sarcoptes, and have implications for the effective control of the diseases Sarcoptes mite causes. Further studies are needed, especially to compare the profitability, safety, S. Alasaad (*) Department of Ecology and Sylviculture, Aleppo University, 20333 Aleppo, Syria e-mail: [email protected] S. Alasaad : J. M. Pérez Departamento de Biología Animal, Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Universidad de Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas, s. n., 23071 Jaén, Spain L. Rossi (*) : L. Rambozzi : D. Soglia Dipartimento di Produzioni Animali, Epidemiologia ed Ecologia, Università di Torino, Via Leonardo da Vinci 44, 10095 Grugliasco, Italy e-mail: [email protected] R. C. Soriguer Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC), Av. María Luisa, s.n., Pabellón del Perú, 41013 Sevilla, Spain X. Q. Zhu (*) College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, 483 Wushan Street, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510642, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] sensibility and specificity of the different methods of this neglected realm of the ubiquitous ectoparasite.