Abstract
Development of in vitro culture and completion of genome sequencing of several Babesia parasites promoted the efforts to establish transfection systems for these parasites to dissect the gene functions. It has been more than a decade since the establishment of first transfection for Babesia bovis, the causative agent of bovine babesiosis. However, the number of genes that were targeted by genetic tools in Babesia parasites is limited. This is partially due to the low efficiencies of these methods. The recent adaptation of CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing of Babesia bovis can accelerate the efforts for dissecting this parasite’s genome and extend the knowledge on biological aspects of erythrocytic and tick stages of Babesia. Additionally, glmS ribozyme as a conditional knockdown system is available that could be used for the characterization of essential genes. The development of high throughput genetic tools is needed to dissect the function of multigene families, targeting several genes in a specific pathway, and finally genome-wide identification of essential genes to find novel drug targets. In this review, we summarized the current tools that are available for Babesia and the genes that are being targeted by these tools. This may draw a perspective for the future development of genetic tools and pave the way for the identification of novel drugs or vaccine targets.
Highlights
Babesia are unicellular, apicomplexan tick-borne parasites that have a great economic impact on the livestock industry, pet animal and wildlife health, and a growing concern of human health due to accidental infections by zoonotic Babesia
Mammalian hosts are infected by sporozoites during the tick blood meal and Babesia parasites exclusively invade and multiply within red blood cells (RBCs) (Figure 1)
The sexual stage or gamogony happens in the tick midgut, which is followed by kinetes formation and migration to salivary glands, and sporozoites production which is called transstadial transmission [4]
Summary
Apicomplexan tick-borne parasites that have a great economic impact on the livestock industry, pet animal and wildlife health, and a growing concern of human health due to accidental infections by zoonotic Babesia. In most of Babesia spp. except B. microti, kinetes invade ovaries and eggs which results in parasite transmission into offspring (transovarial transmission, To).is an urgent need to develop new drugs and find vaccine candidates against. A better understanding of the biology of Babesia spp. facilitates identification is an urgent need to develop drugs and find vaccine candidates and There characterization of new vaccine and drugnew targets and assists to understand the molecu-against babesiosis. Toxoplasma gondii, to canunderstand shed light onthe moand characterization new vaccine and spp. drugand targets and assists the conserved and drug pathways in Babesia; thereprogress are numerous unique genes lecular basis ofgenes current resistance. Advancement motivated researchers to identify gene regulatory regions and further the establishment of genetic modification techniques [22] Such tools have been used to study parasite biology in the erythrocytic stage and the identification of tick stage-specific proteins [23–. In this we summarized current tools that are available formodification genetic modifireview, we review, summarized the currentthe tools that are available for genetic of cation of and draw the possible road for future advancement in Babesia spp. and draw the possible road for future advancement in this field. this field
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