Function-guided selection of midgut antigens from Ornithodoros erraticus ticks and an evaluation of their protective efficacy in rabbits

Abstract

Title Function-guided selection of midgut antigens from Ornithodoros erraticus ticks and an evaluation of their protective efficacy in rabbits.

Vaccination with Ectoparasite Proteins Involved in Midgut Function and Blood Digestion Reduces Salmon Louse Infestations

“…The rational approach for the identification of candidate protective antigens was proposed and successfully applied in ticks [26,37]. Focusing on functionally relevant biological processes and proteins, such as tick attachment and feeding, proteases and protease inhibitors at the tick-host interface, water balance, blood digestion, heme and iron metabolism, detoxification, mating, vitellogenesis, and fertility, allowed the identification of candidate vaccine tick protective antigens [26,37].…”

“…The rational approach for the identification of candidate protective antigens was proposed and successfully applied in ticks [26,37]. Focusing on functionally relevant biological processes and proteins, such as tick attachment and feeding, proteases and protease inhibitors at the tick-host interface, water balance, blood digestion, heme and iron metabolism, detoxification, mating, vitellogenesis, and fertility, allowed the identification of candidate vaccine tick protective antigens [26,37]. Some of these antigens, such as Aquaporin [37][38][39][40], Ferritin [41][42][43][44], and 64TRP cement protein [45,46], have shown efficacy in vaccine formulations for the control of tick infestations, thus providing support for the potential of this predictive model for the identification of candidate protective antigens.…”

“…Toll-like receptors (TLRs), such as TLR6 (P30), play an important role in the innate and adaptive immune responses to pathogens and are the target of new vaccine adjuvants by using lipopeptides that activate TLR2/6 heterodimers for use in Leishmania vaccines [48]. Potassium chloride and amino acid transporters and other solute carriers involved in cellular hypotonic salinity response and transmembrane transport, such as P33, have been used as candidate protective antigens in vaccine formulations against hard ticks (e.g., Aquaporin; [37][38][39][40]), soft ticks (e.g., ABC transporter; [37] and sulfate/anion exchanger; [49]) ticks and cat flea (e.g., zinc transporter ZIP13 homolog; [25]). Solute carriers, such as human solute carrier family 11 member 1 protein (SLC11A1), have been implicated in the control of bacterial replication and might influence the responses to vaccines with recombinant bacteria in different ways such as regulation of bacterial load or recombinant antigen dose, class II molecule expression, costimulatory or adjuvant activity, or antigen processing [50].…”

In silico selection of functionally important proteins from the mialome of Ornithodoros erraticus ticks and assessment of their protective efficacy as vaccine targets

“…The goal of this trial was to assess the combined vaccine efficacy of the more protective candidate antigens tested in the trial 1 (OeTSP1, OeTSP2, OeRPP0, OePK4) and the synthetic immunogenic peptide OeSEL, derived from the O. erraticus selenoprotein T, which was the more protective candidate in our preceding study [25].…”

“…Some of these proteins, including two aquaporins, one ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter and one selenoprotein T (OeSEL), have recently been selected and tested as protective candidate antigens, obtaining partial protection against O. erraticus infestations, which reached 47.5% vaccine efficacy for OeSEL [25]. Thus, new candidate protective antigens from Ornithodoros ticks are still needed, which may be identified by searching the O. erraticus mialome for proteins playing a role in physiological processes that are essential for tick survival.…”