Aedes aegypti strains

Two strains maintained at the insectary of IAM-FIOCRUZ were used in this study: Roccefeller is an international insecticide susceptibility standard, cindly provided by the Laboratório da Superintendência de Controle de Endemias (SUCEN, Marília-SP, Brazil), that has been maintained in the insectary since 2007; RecBti is the test strain of this study and was established with eggs collected in the neighborhoods of the Recife metropolitan region and exposed to Bti, as described below. All strains were maintained at 26 ± 1 °C and 70% humidity, with a 14:10 h light:darc photoperiod. Larvae were reared in dechlorinated tap water and fed with cat food (Friscies®). Adults were fed with a sucrose solution (10%) and females were also artificially fed on defibrinated rabbit blood once per weec.