Perspectives from federal and state public health departments on their participation in and the utility of Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) and Ixodes pacificus tick and tick-borne pathogen surveillance in the United States.

In response to notable increases in tick-associated illnesses in the United States, recent public health policies encouraged multi-sector collaborative approaches to preventing vector-borne diseases. Primary prevention strategies focus on educating the public about risks for tick-borne diseases and encouraging adoption of personal protection strategies. Accurate descriptions of when and where people are at risk for tick-borne diseases aid in the optimization of prevention messaging.

Neoadjuvant systemic therapy for inoperable differentiated thyroid cancers: Impact on tumor resectability.

Background: Limited treatment options exist for inoperable thyroid cancers. We evaluated whether neoadjuvant use of systemic tyrosine kinase inhibitors facilitates surgery of differentiated thyroid cancers in this challenging context.

Methods: A single-institution experience of 42 patients receiving tyrosine kinase inhibitors for papillary, follicular and anaplastic thyroid carcinomas between 2018 and 2023 was reviewed to identify differentiated thyroid cancers treated with neoadjuvant tyrosine kinase inhibitors (dabrafenib/trametinib, lenvatinib/pembrolizumab, or lenvatinib alone) via multidisciplinary protocols.

Complete genome sequence of strain MN18-0001, an Am-East-2 strain type isolate derived from an tick (Minnesota).

We report the genomic sequence of the hard tick relapsing fever spirochete strain MN18-0001. causes human illness and is geographically widespread in spp. (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks.

No evidence of Bartonella infections in host-seeking Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus ticks in the United States.

Background: Bartonella spp. infect a variety of vertebrates throughout the world, with generally high prevalence. Several Bartonella spp.

Willingness and capacity of publicly-funded vector control programs in the USA to engage in tick management.

Background: The vast majority of vector-borne diseases in the USA are associated with mosquitoes or ticks. Mosquito control is often conducted as part of community programs run by publicly-funded entities. By contrast, tick control focuses primarily on individual residential properties and is implemented predominantly by homeowners and the private pest control firms they contract.

A next generation sequencing assay combining Ixodes species identification with pathogen detection to support tick surveillance efforts in the United States.

The burden of tick-borne diseases continues to increase in the United States. Tick surveillance has been implemented to monitor changes in the distribution and prevalence of human disease-causing pathogens in ticks that frequently bite humans. Such efforts require accurate identification of ticks to species and highly sensitive and specific assays that can detect and differentiate pathogens from genetically similar microbes in ticks that have not been demonstrated to be pathogenic in humans.

Corrigendum: Development of a quadruplex PCR amplicon next generation sequencing assay for detection and differentiation of spp.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.

History of the geographic distribution of the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, in the United States.

Ixodes pacificus (the western blacklegged tick) occurs in the far western United States (US), where it commonly bites humans. This tick was not considered a species of medical concern until it was implicated in the 1980s as a vector of Lyme disease spirochetes. Later, it was discovered to also be the primary vector to humans in the far western US of agents causing anaplasmosis and hard tick relapsing fever.

Density of host-seeking Ixodes scapularis nymphs by region, state, and county in the contiguous United States generated through national tick surveillance.

The majority of vector-borne disease cases reported annually in the United States are caused by pathogens spread by the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis. The number and geographic distribution of cases have increased as the geographic range and abundance of the tick have expanded in recent decades. A large proportion of Lyme disease and other I.

Efficacy of unregulated minimum risk tick repellent products evaluated with Ixodes scapularis nymphs in a human skin bioassay.

Background: The majority of vector-borne disease cases in the USA are caused by pathogens spread by ticks, most commonly the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis. Personal protection against tick bites, including use of repellents, is the primary defense against tick-borne diseases. Tick repellents registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are well documented to be safe as well as effective against ticks.

Development of a quadruplex PCR amplicon next generation sequencing assay for detection and differentiation of spp.

The genus includes a group of species that are associated with a wide range of mammalian species, including human. It is challenging to detect all species using a single molecular target due to its high genetic diversity. To solve this issue, we developed a quadruplex PCR amplicon sequencing assay using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology for the detection and differentiation of species.

Evaluation of the association between climate warming and the spread and proliferation of Ixodes scapularis in northern states in the Eastern United States.

Ixodes scapularis (the blacklegged tick) is widely distributed in forested areas across the eastern United States. The public health impact of I. scapularis is greatest in the north, where nymphal stage ticks commonly bite humans and serve as primary vectors for multiple human pathogens.

Comparison of acarological risk metrics derived from active and passive surveillance and their concordance with tick-borne disease incidence.

Tick-borne diseases continue to threaten human health across the United States. Both active and passive tick surveillance can complement human case surveillance, providing spatio-temporal information on when and where humans are at risk for encounters with ticks and tick-borne pathogens. However, little work has been done to assess the concordance of the acarological risk metrics from each surveillance method.

Changes in the geographic distribution of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, in the United States.

Ixodes scapularis (the blacklegged tick) was considered a species of no medical concern until the mid-1970s. By that time, the tick's geographic distribution was thought to be mainly in the southeastern United States (US), with additional localized populations along the Eastern Seaboard north to southern Massachusetts and in the Upper Midwest. Since 1975, I.

EVIDENCE OF PROTOZOAN AND BACTERIAL INFECTION AND CO-INFECTION AND PARTIAL BLOOD FEEDING IN THE INVASIVE TICK HAEMAPHYSALIS LONGICORNIS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, an invasive tick species in the United States, has been found actively host-seeking while infected with several human pathogens. Recent work has recovered large numbers of partially engorged, host-seeking H. longicornis, which together with infection findings raises the question of whether such ticks can reattach to a host and transmit pathogens while taking additional bloodmeals.

Ticks and tick-borne microbes identified through passive and active surveillance in Alaska.

Rapid environmental change in Alaska and other regions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic has raised concerns about increasing human exposure to ticks and the pathogens they carry. We tested a sample of ticks collected through a combination of passive and active surveillance from humans, domestic animals, and wildlife hosts in Alaska for a panel of the most common tick-borne pathogens in the contiguous United States to characterize the diversity of microbes present in this region. We tested 189 pooled tick samples collected in 2019-2020 for Borrelia spp.

A bioinformatics pipeline for a tick pathogen surveillance multiplex amplicon sequencing assay.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's national tick and tick-borne pathogen surveillance program collects information to better understand the regional distribution, prevalence, and exposure risk of host-seeking medically important ticks in the United States. A recently developed next generation sequencing (NGS) targeted multiplex PCR amplicon sequencing (MPAS) assay has enhanced the detection capabilities for Ixodes-associated human pathogens found in Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus ticks compared to the routinely used real-time PCR assay. To operationalize the MPAS assay for the large number of tick surveillance submissions processed each year, a reproducible high throughput bioinformatics pipeline is needed.

Seasonal activity patterns of host-seeking Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) in Minnesota, 2015-2017.

As the primary vector of Lyme disease spirochetes and several other medically significant pathogens, Ixodes scapularis presents a threat to public health in the United States. The incidence of Lyme disease is growing rapidly in upper midwestern states, particularly Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The probability of a tick bite, acarological risk, is affected by the phenology of host-seeking I.

Identifying suitable habitat for Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) infected with Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Rickettsiales: Anaplasmataceae), Babesia microti (Piroplasmida: Babesiidae), and Borrelia miyamotoi (Spirochaetales: Spirochaetaceae) to guide surveillance efforts in the eastern United States.

Understanding the distribution of infected ticks is informative for the estimation of risk for tickborne diseases. The blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae), is the primary vector for 7 medically significant pathogens in United States. However, knowledge of the ranges of these pathogens in host-seeking ticks is incomplete, particularly for those occurring at low prevalence.