Vaccines that target blood-feeding disease vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks, have the potential to protect against the many diseases caused by vector-borne pathogens. We tested the ability of an anti-tick vaccine derived from a tick cement protein (64TRP) of Rhipicephalus appendiculatus to protect mice against tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) transmitted by infected Ixodes ricinus tick...

Ixodes scapularis is the specific arthropod vector for a number of globally prevalent infections, including Lyme disease caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. A feeding-induced and acellular epithelial barrier, known as the peritrophic membrane (PM) is detectable in I. scapularis. However, whether or how the PM influences the persistence of major tick-borne pathogens, such as B. burgdor...

The Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi alters the expression of outer surface protein (osp) genes as the bacterium cycles between ticks and mammals. OspA is produced as borreliae enter the tick vector and remains a major surface antigen during midgut colonization. To elucidate the role of OspA in the vector, we created an insertional deletion of ospA in strain B31-A3. The ospA mutant ...

The Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, inhabits the gut lumen of the tick vector. At this location the spirochete is exposed to host blood when a tick feeds. We report here on studies that were done with normal and complement-deficient (C3-knockout) mice to determine if the host complement system killed spirochetes within the vector. We found that spirochete numbers within feeding n...

Abstract Potential reinvasion of the United States by cattle fever ticks, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) annulatus (Say) and R. (B.) microplus (Canestrini), which are endemic in Mexico, threatens domestic livestock industry because these ticks vector causal agents (Babesia bovis (Babes) (Piroplasmida: Babesidae) B. bigemina Smith & Kilborne) bovine babesiosis. The Cattle Fever Tick Eradication P...

Many challenges face tick genomics. Ticks have large genomes and their estimated sizes vary from 1.04~7.1 x10(9) bp, about one third to over two times the size of the human genome. Karyotype studies have revealed a range in chromosome number and the sex determining system seems to be primarily driven by a XY or a XO format. Re-association hybridization kinetics indicates that the bulk of the ti...

Equi merozoite antigens 1 and 2 (EMA-1 and EMA-2) are Babesia equi proteins expressed on the parasite surface during infection in horses and are orthologues of proteins in Theileria spp., which are also tick-transmitted protozoal pathogens. We determined in this study whether EMA-1 and EMA-2 were expressed within the vector tick Boophilus microplus. B. equi transitions through multiple, morphol...