edenext.eu). The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. “
“Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) are among the smallest blood-sucking flies, with body lengths that rarely exceed three millimeters ( Mellor et al., 2000). The developmental cycle of Culicoides consists of egg, four larval instars, pupa and adult ( Fig. 1). Almost all Culicoides require moisture-rich Fulvestrant ic50 habitats for development of egg, larval and pupal forms and the availability of these environments

is a key determinant limiting distribution, abundance and seasonal occurrence ( Mellor et al., 2000). Almost 1400 extant and extinct species of Culicoides have been described from a highly diverse range of ecosystems and the genus is present on all major land masses with the exception of Antarctica and New Zealand ( Borkent, 2004, Borkent, 2013 and Mellor et al., 2000). Only an extremely small proportion of Culicoides species have a significant deleterious impact on human existence, however, even in the case of species known to play a role in transmitting arboviruses, bacteria, protozoa and helminth parasites to humans and animals, they remain the least studied Perifosine of the major Dipteran vector groups. This is in

part a consequence of their small size and fragility, which imposes significant limitations on studies of their ecology and for the most part prevents laboratory colonization of vector species, but is also due to the limited direct impact of Culicoides on human health. In light of the Urocanase recent and unprecedented emergence of Schmallenberg virus (SBV), a novel arbovirus of ruminants that upon discovery had unknown zoonotic potential, we assess the potential for Culicoides midges to act as vectors of human-to-human

transmitted or zoonotic arboviruses in Europe. This review complements earlier papers that have discussed the role of Culicoides in public health worldwide ( Linley et al., 1983) and as vectors of arboviruses ( Mellor et al., 2000) and non-viral pathogens ( Linley, 1985). No attempt is made to discuss in detail biological transmission of arboviruses by Culicoides for which recent reviews are already available ( Mellor et al., 2009 and Tabachnick, 2013) and the role of Culicoides in the emergence of livestock arboviruses in Europe ( Carpenter et al., 2009, Maclachlan and Mayo, 2013, Mellor and Wittmann, 2002 and Purse et al., 2005) is considered only where relevant to the primary subject (and summarized briefly in Table 1). Globally, the most commonly observed impact of Culicoides biting midges on public health occurs through nuisance biting inflicted by female adults, leading in severe cases to cutaneous pruritic wheal-and-flare responses and permanent scarring ( Felippe-Bauer and Sternheim, 2008, Linley et al., 1983 and Sherlock, 1965).