A Review on Tick Vaccine - Current Status and Future Prospective

Abstract

The conventional practice of tick management is mainly focused on treating the animals and animal shed with commonly available chemical acaricides. Yet, this method only provides a limited degree of success with several inherited pitfalls, such as acaricidal residues in meat and milk, biomagnification in the food web, selection of drug-insensitive ticks, and negative environmental impact from chemical residues. Vaccines provide an enticing alternative approach, but progress has stalled against these tenacious hematophagous arthropods. After over 30 years of vaccine research against tick and tick-borne pathogens, only a handful of native or recombinant antigen targets have been identified and evaluated as single-antigen vaccines, with inconsistent efficacy. In contrast, multi-antigen vaccines targeting several molecular functions may hold better potential for effective control in the field. However, challenges remain in ensuring consistent protein purity and expression scales, proper post-translational modification, and optimal immune responses. Therefore, epitope-based peptide vaccines that can stimulate protective immune responses represent a promising approach for tick vaccine development. Additionally, mRNA vaccines have recently emerged as an alternative vaccine platform with potential benefits in potency, speed of development, cost-effectiveness, and safety. Research continues to unlock new immunological intricacies and opportunities within ticks. Novel vaccine strategies may achieve a pivotal breakthrough against these pervasive arachnids and the dangerous diseases they spread.