Similarly, the sustained repression of two immune pathways (IMD and Jak/STAT) in hemolymph-infected R. prolixus during long-term infection may be responsible for the high parasite loads found in that region of the insect body, which could facilitate the infection of the salivary glands (Mello et al., 1995; Ferreira et al., 2010). Here, SOAT1 is linked to infection.