Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
Volume 24, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijms24021100
Keywords
Ixodes ricinus; microbiome; tick-borne disease; salivary glands; midgut; endosymbiont; Candidatus Midichloria mitochondrii
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Due to climate change, there has been an increase in tick activity and population, leading to a higher prevalence of tick-borne diseases. This study analyzed the microbial communities within different tick tissues and used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to study the microbiota of Ixodes ricinus ticks. The inclusion of a mock community during bioinformatic analysis proved to be useful in identifying key bacteria within the tick.
The ectoparasite Ixodes ricinus is an important vector for many tick-borne diseases (TBD) in the northern hemisphere, such as Lyme borreliosis, rickettsiosis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, or tick-borne encephalitis virus. As climate change will lead to rising temperatures in the next years, we expect an increase in tick activity, tick population, and thus in the spread of TBD. Consequently, it has never been more critical to understand relationships within the microbial communities in ticks that might contribute to the tick's fitness and the occurrence of TBD. Therefore, we analyzed the microbiota in different tick tissues such as midgut, salivary glands, and residual tick material, as well as the microbiota in complete Ixodes ricinus ticks using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. By using a newly developed DNA extraction protocol for tick tissue samples and a self-designed mock community, we were able to detect endosymbionts and pathogens that have been described in the literature previously. Further, this study displayed the usefulness of including a mock community during bioinformatic analysis to identify essential bacteria within the tick.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available