Table 3.

Quantitative analysis of A. marginale colony densities in D. variabilis guts and salivary glands after gene knockdown by RNAi.

	Tick genes silenced by RNAi
Tissue/colonies containing RF or DF	GST	SelM	vATPase	Subolesin	Control
Ticks collected after AF
Gut/RF	0.27 ± 0.24	0.85 ± 0.31*	0.62 ± 0.57	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.28 ± 0.20
Gut/DF	0.07 ± 0.01*	0.26 ± 0.26	0.15 ± 0.12	0.17 ± 0.06	0.18 ± 0.13
Salivary glands/RF	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00
Salivary glands/DF	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00	0.00 ± 0.00
Ticks collected after TF
Gut/RF	1.00 ± 0.72	1.43 ± 1.29*	0.63 ± 0.47	0.04 ± 0.01*	0.75 ± 0.59
Gut/DF	0.29 ± 0.23	0.53 ± 0.48	2.62 ± 2.31*	0.04 ± 0.03*	0.32 ± 0.25
Salivary glands/RF	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.003 ± 0.001
Salivary glands/DF	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.00 ± 0.00*	0.01 ± 0.01

The density of A. marginale reticulated forms (RF) and dense forms (DF) containing colonies (average ± SD) was calculated for tick gut and salivary gland (sg) sections after acquisition feeding (AF) and transmission feeding (TF) and compared between dsRNA-injected and control ticks by Student's t-test with unequal variance (*P < 0.05). The values were underlined when gene knockdown resulted in higher RF or DF when compared to controls.