Abstract
Ticks are blood-sucking arthropods of great importance in the medical and veterinary fields worldwide. They are considered second only to mosquitos as vectors of pathogenic microorganisms that can cause serious infectious disorders, such as Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis. Hard (Ixodid) ticks feed on host animals for several days and inject saliva together with pathogens to hosts during blood feeding. Some animal species can acquire resistance to blood-feeding by ticks after a single or repeated tick infestation, resulting in decreased weights and numbers of engorged ticks or the death of ticks in subsequent infestations. Importantly, this acquired tick resistance (ATR) can reduce the risk of pathogen transmission from pathogen-infected ticks to hosts. This is the basis for the development of tick antigen-targeted vaccines to forestall tick infestation and tick-borne diseases. Accumulation of basophils is detected in the tick re-infested skin lesion of animals showing ATR, and the ablation of basophils abolishes ATR in mice and guinea pigs, illustrating the critical role for basophils in the expression of ATR. In this review article, we provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for the development and manifestation of ATR, with a particular focus on the role of basophils.
Highlights
Ticks, especially hard ticks, are blood-sucking ectoparasites and serve as vectors for transmission of pathogenic microorganisms, including virus, bacteria and protozoan, that cause serious infectious disorders in animals and humans [1,2,3]
Tick-borne diseases include Lyme disease caused by spirochetes of Borrelia burgdorferi, human monocytic ehrlichiosis caused by Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever caused by Rickettsia rickettsii, virus-mediated encephalitis and sever fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and babesiosis caused by protozoa Babesia [1,2,3, 7,8,9]
This particular type of allergy is designated as a-gal syndrome, because patients produce IgE against the carbohydrate Gala1-3Galb1-4GlcNAcR (a-Gal) that is shared by tick saliva antigens, red meat, and recombinant antibodies [10,11,12]
Summary
Reviewed by: Stephen Wikel, Quinnipiac University, United States Anna Di Nardo, University of California, San Diego, United States. Ticks are blood-sucking arthropods of great importance in the medical and veterinary fields worldwide. Some animal species can acquire resistance to blood-feeding by ticks after a single or repeated tick infestation, resulting in decreased weights and numbers of engorged ticks or the death of ticks in subsequent infestations. This acquired tick resistance (ATR) can reduce the risk of pathogen transmission from pathogen-infected ticks to hosts. This is the basis for the development of tick antigen-targeted vaccines to forestall tick infestation and tickborne diseases.
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