Sharing the Ride: Ixodes scapularis Symbionts and Their Interactions

Stewart, Philip E.; Bloom, Marshall E.

doi:10.3389/fcimb.2020.00142

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…as the dominant taxon followed by Rickettsia sp. Other bacterial community members were low in abundance and also dominated by bacteria typical for the soil and plant environment, as previously suggested [42], and this corroborates the results from the culturing approach. Overall, our findings contrast previous reports of an abundant bacterial community in ticks reporting several hundreds of OTUs [13,19,20] using similar culture-independent methods.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The bacterial community of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum)

et al. 2021

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Background The lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum), an important vector of a wide range of human and animal pathogens, is very common throughout the East and Midwest of the USA. Ticks are known to carry non-pathogenic bacteria that may play a role in their vector competence for pathogens. Several previous studies using the high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies reported the commensal bacteria in a tick midgut as abundant and diverse. In contrast, in our preliminary survey of the field collected adult lone star ticks, we found the number of culturable/viable bacteria very low. Methods We aimed to analyze the bacterial community of A. americanum by a parallel culture-dependent and a culture-independent approach applied to individual ticks. Results We analyzed 94 adult females collected in eastern Kansas and found that 60.8% of ticks had no culturable bacteria and the remaining ticks carried only 67.7 ± 42.8 colony-forming units (CFUs)/tick representing 26 genera. HTS of the 16S rRNA gene resulted in a total of 32 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with the dominant endosymbiotic genera Coxiella and Rickettsia (> 95%). Remaining OTUs with very low abundance were typical soil bacterial taxa indicating their environmental origin. Conclusions No correlation was found between the CFU abundance and the relative abundance from the culture-independent approach. This suggests that many culturable taxa detected by HTS but not by culture-dependent method were not viable or were not in their culturable state. Overall, our HTS results show that the midgut bacterial community of A. americanum is very poor without a core microbiome and the majority of bacteria are endosymbiotic.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The bacterial community of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum)

et al. 2021

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“…The developmental cycle of an arthropod vector from an egg through larva and/or nymph to the adult stage could take years 20,31 . Arthropod vectors such as I. scapularis ticks feed on the vertebrate host for about 3-5 days to acquire a complete blood meal (or full engorgement) and this extended event allows successful acquisition and/or transmission of pathogens [31][32][33] . The ability of ticks to transstadially transmit flaviviruses provide greater possibilities for the evolutionary changes in the virus at the phenotype and/or genotype level in the vector 1 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Experimental Murine Model to Study Acquisition Dynamics of Tick-Borne Langat Virus in Ixodes Scapularis

Rajendran

Ahmed

Roozitalab

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Ixodes scapularis ticks acquire several pathogens from reservoir animals and transmit them to humans. Development of an animal model to study acquisition and transmission dynamics of these pathogens into and from ticks, respectively, is challenging due to the fact that in nature ticks feed for a longer duration and on multiple vertebrate hosts. To understand the complex nature of pathogen acquisition/transmission, it is essential to set up a successful tick blood feeding method on a suitable vertebrate host. In this study, we provide an evidence that murine model can be successfully used to study acquisition dynamics of Langat virus (LGTV), a member of tick-borne flaviviruses. Mice were inoculated intraperitoneally with LGTV that showed detectable viral loads in murine blood, skin and other tissues including brain. Both larval and nymphal ticks that were allowed to feed on murine host successfully acquired LGTV loads. Also, we found that after molting LGTV was transstadially transmitted from larval to nymphal stage. In addition, we noted that, LGTV down-regulated IsSMase expression in all group of ticks possibly for its survival in its vector host. Taken together, we provide an evidence on the use of murine model to not only study acquisition dynamics of LGTV but also to study changes in tick gene expression during acquisition of arboviruses into ticks.

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“…The geographical location of fieldcollected ticks, the life stage of the tick, the tick species and time from moulting and feeding may also play a role in the inconsistencies reported in tick microbiome research, as well as a lack of agreement as to whether the tick microbiome includes environmental microbes and symbionts. 39,40 Recent evidence has leaned towards lack of a stable microbiome.…”

Section: Tick Gut Microbiomementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, studies on hard ticks such as I. scapularis have observed differing results in terms of the tick microbiome, with some studies finding few bacterial genera in the tick gut and other studies observing 20 or more. The geographical location of field‐collected ticks, the life stage of the tick, the tick species and time from moulting and feeding may also play a role in the inconsistencies reported in tick microbiome research, as well as a lack of agreement as to whether the tick microbiome includes environmental microbes and symbionts 39,40 …”

Section: Borrelia Interactions With the Tick Gutmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactions between Borrelia burgdorferi and its hosts across the enzootic cycle

Helble

McCarthy

2021

Parasite Immunology

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Arthropod-borne diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent across the globe, and an understanding of the pathogen-arthropod interface can be an important tool in control of these diseases.Ixodes ticks carry many pathogens of human importance, including Anaplasma, Babesia, Borrelia, tick-borne encephalitis virus and Powassan virus. The most researched of these pathogens is the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease and the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. [1][2][3] There are three important components to maintenance of the B. burgdorferi life cycle: the spirochete, the invertebrate tick vector and the vertebrate host (Figure 1).Ixodes ticks are haematophagous and take one blood meal during the larval, nymph and adult stage of their lifecycle. B. burgdorferi is not transmitted from adult ticks to eggs, so larval ticks must acquire the spirochetes from infected animals, such as birds and mice, with the first blood meal. The spirochetes will remain within the tick after feeding and moulting into the nymphal stage. A B. burgdorferi infected nymph will feed on another reservoir host and transmit the spirochetes, continuing the enzootic cycle. After another moult into the adult stage, the adult tick will typically feed on larger animals (such as deer) that may not be competent reservoir hosts for B. burgdorferi but are critical to tick mating. Ticks in the nymphal stage are primarily responsible for transmission of B. burgdorferi to humans, but humans are not important in the enzootic cycle and are considered dead-end hosts. 1The tick salivary glands and midgut play important roles in the colonization and transmission of B. burgdorferi. During acquisition from an infected host that occurs with the tick blood meal, B. burgdorferi enters the tick with blood and interacts with tick

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Sharing the Ride: Ixodes scapularis Symbionts and Their Interactions

Cited by 26 publications

References 104 publications

The bacterial community of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum)

The bacterial community of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum)

An Experimental Murine Model to Study Acquisition Dynamics of Tick-Borne Langat Virus in Ixodes Scapularis

Interactions between Borrelia burgdorferi and its hosts across the enzootic cycle

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