Abstract
Vaccines are an environmentally friendly alternative to acaracides for the control of tick infestations, to reduce the risk for tick-borne diseases affecting human and animal health worldwide, and to improve animal welfare and production. Subolesin (SUB, also known as 4D8) is the functional homolog of Akirin2 involved in the regulation of development and innate immune response, and a proven protective antigen for the control of ectoparasite infestations and pathogen infection. Oral vaccination combining protein antigens with immunostimulants has proven efficacy with increased host welfare and safety, but has not been used for the control of tick infestations. Here we describe the efficacy of oral vaccination with a formulation combining Rhipicephalus microplus SUB and heat inactivated Mycobacterium bovis (IV) on cattle tick infestations and fertility. The levels of IgG antibody titers against SUB and M. bovis P22, and the expression of selected immune response genes were determined and analyzed as possible correlates of protection. We demonstrated that oral immunization with the SUB+IV formulation resulted in 51% reduction in the number of female ticks and 30% reduction in fertility with an overall efficacy of 65% in the control of R. microplus infestations by considering the cumulative effect on reducing tick survival and fertility in cattle. The akr2, IL-1β, and C3 mRNA levels together with antibody levels against SUB correlated with vaccine efficacy. The effect of the oral immunization with SUB+IV in cattle on tick survival and fertility is essential to reduce tick infestations, and extended previous results on the effect of R. microplus SUB for the control of cattle tick infestations. These results support the development of oral vaccines formulations for the control of tick infestations and the incidence of tick-borne diseases.
Highlights
Ticks are arthropod vectors of pathogens affecting human and animal health as well as animal welfare and production worldwide (Jongejan and Uilenberg, 2004; de la Fuente et al, 2008; Rashid et al, 2018)
Despite the proven efficacy of R. microplus BM86 and BM95 based vaccines for the control of cattle tick infestations and recent advances in the identification of new tick protective antigens, research is needed for the development of vaccine formulations with higher efficacy and safety for the control of tick infestations and tick-borne diseases
The objective of this study was to provide a proof of concept for oral vaccine formulations for the control of cattle tick infestations, and the identification of candidate correlates of vaccine efficacy
Summary
Ticks are arthropod vectors of pathogens affecting human and animal health as well as animal welfare and production worldwide (Jongejan and Uilenberg, 2004; de la Fuente et al, 2008; Rashid et al, 2018). Despite the use of traditional cattle tick control methods such as the use of chemical acaricides, habitat management, and genetic selection of animals with higher resistance to ticks, tick prevalence continues to be a major economic problem for the cattle industry (de la Fuente et al, 2017; Rashid et al, 2018) This persistent problem is due to several factors including acaracide resistance in ticks and safety issues associated with these chemicals, which support the development of vaccines as an effective and environmentally sound approach for the control of tick infestations (de la Fuente and Contreras, 2015; de la Fuente et al, 2016b; 2017; de la Fuente, 2018). SUB was discovered as a tick protective antigen (Almazán et al, 2010), and since it has shown vaccination efficacy for the control of infestations by different arthropod ectoparasite species and pathogen infection and transmission (recently reviewed by de la Fuente and Contreras, 2015; Artigas-Jerónimo et al, 2018)
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