The aim of this study was to obtain experimental evidence that
phlebotomine saliva is actually ingested during the carbohydrate
ingestion phase (before and after blood digestion). The ingestion of
carbohydrate was simulated as it occurs in the field by offering the
insects balls of cotton soaked in sucrose, sucrose crystals or orange
juice cells. The results obtained here showed that ingestion occurred
under each condition investigated, as indicated by the presence of
apyrase, an enzyme used as a marker to detect saliva in the insect gut
and/or carbohydrate sources. Saliva ingestion by phlebotomine during
the carbohydrate ingestion phase is important to explain how it could
promote starch digestion and to trigger Leishmania promastigotes to
follow a differentiation pathway as proposed previously by some
authors