Tick saliva and its role in pathogen transmission

Journal article

Abstract:: Tick saliva is a complex mixture of peptidic and non-peptidic molecules that aid engorgement. The composition of tick saliva changes as feeding progresses and the tick counters the dynamic host response. Ixodid ticks such as Ixodes ricinus, the most important tick species in Europe, transmit numerous pathogens that cause debilitating diseases, e.g. Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis. Tick-borne pathogens are transmitted in tick saliva during blood feeding; however, saliva is not simply a medium enabling pathogen transfer. Instead, tick-borne pathogens exploit saliva-induced modulation of host responses to promote their transmission and infection, so-called saliva-assisted transmission (SAT). Characterization of the saliva factors that facilitate SAT is an active area of current research. Besides providing new insights into how tick-borne pathogens survive in nature, the research is opening new avenues for vaccine development.

Files:: Nuttall_et_al_2019_Tick_saliva_and.pdf

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Language:: English
Keywords:: FFR

Ixodes ricinus

Borrelia burgdorferi

saliva-assisted transmission

tick-borne encephalitis virus

vaccine
Pubs id:: pubs:998935
UUID:: uuid:63c51604-c292-481e-b5fb-15562e6a9a20
Local pid:: pubs:998935
Source identifiers:: 998935
Deposit date:: 2019-05-16

Copyright holder:: Patricia A Nuttall
Rights statement:: © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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