Abstract
Babesiosis is one of the most important tick-borne diseases in veterinary health, impacting mainly cattle, equidae, and canidae, and limiting the development of livestock industries worldwide. In humans, babesiosis is considered to be an emerging disease mostly due to Babesia divergens in Europe and Babesia microti in America. Despite this importance, our knowledge of Babesia sp. transmission by ticks is incomplete. The complexity of vectorial systems involving the vector, vertebrate host, and pathogen, as well as the complex feeding biology of ticks, may be part of the reason for the existing gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, this complexity renders the implementation of experimental systems that are as close as possible to natural conditions and allowing the study of tick-host-parasite interactions, quite difficult. However, it is unlikely that the development of more effective and sustainable control measures against babesiosis will emerge unless significant progress can be made in understanding this tripartite relationship. The various methods used to date to achieve tick transmission of Babesia spp. of medical and veterinary importance under experimental conditions are reviewed and discussed here.
Highlights
Babesiosis remains prevalent worldwide and represents an important threat for both humans and animals [1,2]
The aim of this review is to summarize studies that include both tick infection on Babesia-infected animals and Babesia infection of ticks through artificial systems, and to comment on the major results they achieved
Demonstrations of parasite presence in unfed field ticks, in tick salivary glands, eggs, or unfed larvae, while more convincing than detection in ticks collected from animals, require confirmation only provided by the validation of vector competence in a controlled experimental model
Summary
Babesiosis remains prevalent worldwide and represents an important threat for both humans and animals [1,2]. The development of improved control measures against babesiosis is limited by the numerous and significant gaps in our understanding of the biology of Babesia spp., especially regarding molecular interaction between parasites, vectors, and vertebrate hosts, as well as the factors that may influence both the development and the transmission of the parasite [12]. To fill these gaps, it is essential to be able to reproduce the life cycle of Babesia species in controlled experimental conditions, including transmission by ticks [13,14]. The aim of this review is to summarize studies that include both tick infection on Babesia-infected animals and Babesia infection of ticks through artificial systems, and to comment on the major results they achieved
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