Ixodes ricinus immunogenic saliva protein, homologue to Amblyomma americanum AV422: Determining its potential for use in tick bite confirmation. | LitMetric
Tick bites often go unnoticed, so specific reliable tests are needed to confirm them for prompt diagnosis and treatment of tick-borne diseases. One of the promising candidates for developing such a test is AV422, a tick saliva protein that has been conserved across tick genera. In this study, we demonstrate the potential of the AV422 homologue from Ixodes ricinus to be used for tick bite detection for both Prostriata and Metastriata. We expressed recombinant (r) I. ricinus (Ir) AV422 in E. coli and subjected it to Western blot analysis using rat antibodies to saliva proteins of both I. ricinus (Prostriata) and Dermacentor reticulatus (Metastriata) larvae. Our data demonstrate that rIrAV422 specifically bound to antibodies from sera of rats used for both I. ricinus and D. reticulatus larvae feeding, but not to antibodies from control serum, emphasizing its specificity since tick bites were the sole cause of sera reactivity.
Global Health and Tropical Medicine- Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, NOVA University of Lisbon, Rua da Junqueira 100, 1349-008, Lisbon, Portugal.
Background: Tick-borne rickettsioses (TBR) are emerging, neglected, zoonoses, caused by intracellular α-proteobacteria of the genus Rickettsia, that pose a growing public health concern. The aim of the present study was to evaluate rickettsial infections in questing ticks collected from four different ecological areas in mainland Portugal.
Methods: Over a two-year period, a total of 707 questing ticks were collected.
Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia species that are transmitted by Ixodes ticks prevalent in parts of the United States and Europe. A Lyme vaccine containing the OspA antigens from the single Borrelia species most prevalent in the United States was marketed in the 1990s, but was withdrawn because of unproven concerns about safety, which led to insufficient sales. Since then, the incidence of Lyme disease has increased in the United States owing to the geographical spread of infected ticks.
Department of Animal Production and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Experimental Sciences, Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Valencia, Spain.
Vector-borne diseases represent various sicknesses that are increasingly significant in human and veterinary health. Among the zoonotic agents transmitted by ticks, infections caused by the intracellular pathogens from the Anaplasmataceae family and piroplasmids (Babesia/Theileria spp.) are particularly notable due to the substantial economic losses they cause in the livestock sector.
UK Health Security Agency, Science Group, Porton Down, Salisbury, UK; Department of Infection Biology, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, Institute of Infection and Veterinary and Ecological Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is the most prevalent tick-borne viral disease in Europe and Asia. There are three main subtypes of the virus: European, Siberian, and Far Eastern, each of which having distinctive ecology, clinical presentation, and geographic distribution. In recent years, other TBEV subtypes have been described, namely the Himalayan and Baikalian subtypes.
Most members of the genus Orthonairovirus, represented by Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and Nairobi sheep disease virus, are tick-borne, and some have become a public health concern in recent years. Here, we report the isolation and genetic and biological characterization of a new orthonairovirus, designated as "Iwanai Valley virus" (IWVV), from Ixodes ovatus ticks in Hokkaido, Japan. The amino acid sequence of the viral nucleoprotein (NP) was found to be 34-45% identical to those of known orthonairoviruses.
