Understanding the role of the Scabies mite microbiota in the development of novel control strategies

Sara Taylor ,Katja Fischer

doi:10.33696/immunology.3.088

Abstract

Highlights

With a global prevalence of approximately 300 million people, scabies is one of the most common dermatological infectious diseases worldwide, and was recognised as a neglected tropical disease in 2017 by the World Health Organisation [1]
Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes are the most well recognised opportunistic pathogens associated with scabies infestations [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] and have been clearly linked to pyoderma, and cellulitis which can lead to life-threatening S. aureus associated bacteraemia, or severe post-streptococcal sequelae such as glomerulonephritis and rheumatic fever/heart disease [15]
This correlates with clinical scabies infections in humans, where a definitive link with S. aureus secondary infections is recognised, which is the likely result of a decrease in the benign commensal S. epidermidis [41,42]

Summary

Introduction

With a global prevalence of approximately 300 million people, scabies is one of the most common dermatological infectious diseases worldwide, and was recognised as a neglected tropical disease in 2017 by the World Health Organisation [1]. There is increasing evidence of bacterial involvement in parasitic arthropod infections [20], raising questions for future research into the microbial communities associated with scabies mites, both, regarding their pathogenicity, and whether mite-associated bacteria essential for mite survival could be a novel scabicide target [21]. Many parasitic arthropods, such as the tick Ixodes sp., are known to act as vectors for pathogenic bacteria, for example, in this case Borrelia burgdorferi is the causative agent of Lyme’s disease [22]. As such these endosymbiont species have become interesting target candidates for therapeutic control of parasitic diseases [28,29]

What We Know about the Scabies Mite Microbiota

Interactions with the Host Microbiome During Scabies Infestation

Findings

Future Directions for Research