Abstract
BackgroundThe ixodid tick Dermacentor marginatus is a vector of many pathogens wide spread in Eurasia. Studies of gene sequence on many tick species have greatly increased the information on tick protective antigen which might have the potential to function as effective vaccine candidates or drug targets for eco-friendly acaricide development. In the current study, RNA-seq was applied to identify D. marginatus sequences and analyze differentially expressed unigenes.MethodsTo obtain a broader picture of gene sequences and changes in expression level, RNA-seq was performed to obtain the whole-body transcriptome data of D. marginatus adult female ticks after engorgement and long-term starvation. Subsequently, the real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was applied to validate the RNA-seq data.ResultsRNA-seq produced 30,251 unigenes, of which 32% were annotated. Gene expression was compared among groups that differed by status as newly molted, starved and engorged female adult ticks. Nearly one third of the unigenes in each group were differentially expressed compared to the other two groups, and the most numerous were genes encoding proteins involved in catalytic and binding activities and apoptosis. Selected up-regulated differentially expressed genes in each group were associated to protein, lipids, carbohydrate and chitin metabolism. Blood-feeding and long-term starvation also caused genes differentially expressed in the defense response and antioxidant response. RT-qPCR results indicated 6 differentially expressed transcripts showed similar trends in expression changes with RNA-seq results confirming that the gene expression profiles in transcriptome data is in consistent with RT-qPCR validation.ConclusionsObtaining the sequence information of D. marginatus and characterizing the expression pattern of the genes involved in blood-feeding and during starvation would be helpful in understanding molecular physiology of D. marginatus and provides data for anti-tick vaccine and drug development for controlling the tick.Graphical
Highlights
The ixodid tick Dermacentor marginatus is a vector of many pathogens wide spread in Eurasia
The purpose of the RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis was to obtain gene sequences and identify differentially expressed genes of D. marginatus female adults after blood-feeding and long-term starvation regarding the significant role of female adult that plays in feeding large amount of blood and producing thousands of eggs per individual [35]
Sequencing and assembly Illumina sequencing of the nine D. marginatus adult female tick samples resulted in 460,171,414 raw reads (Additional file 2: Table S2)
Summary
The ixodid tick Dermacentor marginatus is a vector of many pathogens wide spread in Eurasia. Studies of gene sequence on many tick species have greatly increased the information on tick protective antigen which might have the potential to function as effective vaccine candidates or drug targets for eco-friendly acaricide development. Dermacentor marginatus Sulzer that is a wide spread tick species of. Due to its medical importance, D. marginatus as many other tick species, has become an emerging threat to the livestock and public health, which needs control measures to mitigate its impact. The accessibility and ease of practice have made chemical approach dominant in tick control measures [10]. Finding the important target genes of tick species is the key to develop advanced tick control approaches [13, 14]
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