Among arthropod diseases affecting animals, larval infections - myiases - of domestic
and wild animals have been considered important since ancient times. Besides the significant
economic losses to livestock worldwide, myiasis-causing larvae have attracted the
attention of scientists because some parasitise humans and are of interest in forensic
entomology. In the past two decades, the biology, epidemiology, immunology, immunodiagnosis
and control methods of myiasis-causing larvae have been focused on and more recently
the number of molecular studies have also begun to increase. The 'new technologies'
(i.e. molecular biology) are being used to study taxonomy, phylogenesis, molecular
identification, diagnosis (recombinant antigens) and vaccination strategies. In particular,
more in depth molecular studies have now been performed on Sarcophagidae, Calliphoridae
and flies of the Oestridae sister group. This review discusses the most topical issues
and recent studies on myiasis-causing larvae using molecular approaches. In the first
part, PCR-based techniques and the genes that have already been analysed, or are potentially
useful for the molecular phylogenesis and identification of myiasis-causing larvae,
are described. The second section deals with the more recent advances concerning taxonomy,
phylogenetics, population studies, molecular identification, diagnosis and vaccination.