349 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 A. A. A. Asea, P. Kaur (eds.), Heat Shock Proteins in Veterinary Medicine and Sciences, Heat Shock Proteins 12, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73377-7_13 Chapter 13 Heat Shock Proteins and Blood-Feeding in Arthropods Marcos H. Pereira, Rafaela M. M. Paim, Chloé Lahondère, and Claudio R. Lazzari Abstract The blood of endothermic vertebrates constitutes the main, or even the only food for many arthropod species. Even though blood is a food rich in nutrients and in most cases sterile, its consumption is associated to many stressing factors. Energetic, thermal, osmotic and oxidative stresses are among the consequences for arthropods of the rapid ingestion of large amounts of warm blood. To cope with these stressors, these animals have developed different physiological and molecular mechanisms allowing the reduction of the stress or the reparation of the infringed damage. Among the frst, specifc mechanisms of thermoregulation and rapid excre- tion have been identifed. The rapid synthesis of HSP following each feeding event make parts of the mechanisms of molecular reparation. The increase in the HSP70 levels varies across species from about 3 to around 17 times the basal level. This variability in the molecular response is plausibly associated to the occurrence or not of complementary mechanisms for reducing the effect of the stressor, as for instance, thermoregulation. The reduction of HSP70 or HSP70/HSC70 expression does not affect the blood meal size, but impairs blood digestion by the insect. Keywords Disease vectors · Haematophagy · HSP · Kissing-bugs · Mosquitoes · Thermal stress · Thermoregulation M. H. Pereira · R. M. M. Paim Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil C. Lahondère Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA C. R. Lazzari (*) UMR CNRS 7261 - Université de Tours, Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, Tours, France e-mail: claudio.lazzari@univ-tours.fr