Potential effects of blood meal host on bacterial community composition in Ixodes scapularis nymphs

Landesman, William J.; Mulder, Kenneth; Allan, Brian F.; Bashor, Laura; Keesing, Felicia; LoGiudice, Kathleen; Ostfeld, Richard S.

doi:10.1016/j.ttbdis.2019.01.002

Cited by 43 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The analysis of ticks removed from wildlife hosts comes with the inherent complication of a blood meal. The host blood meal has been recently shown to influence both the tick microbiome composition and the presence of pathogens (Landesman et al, 2019;Swei and Kwan, 2017). Further targeted studies are needed to assess the source of microbes with respect to a tick or host origin (Irwin et al, 2018).…”

Section: Fecialismentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial community profiling highlights complex diversity and novel organisms in wildlife ticks

Egan

Loh

Banks

et al. 2020

Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases

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Ticks (Acari: Ixodida) transmit a greater variety of pathogens than any other blood-feeding group of arthropods. While numerous microbes have been identified inhabiting Australian Ixodidae, some of which are related to globally important tick-borne pathogens, little is known about the bacterial communities within ticks collected from Australian wildlife. In this study, 1,019 ticks were identified on 221 hosts spanning 27 wildlife species. Next-generation sequencing was used to amplify the V1-2 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene from 238 ticks; Amblyomma triguttatum (n=6), Bothriocroton auruginans (n=11), Bothriocroton concolor (n=20), Haemaphysalis bancrofti (n=10), Haemaphysalis bremneri (n=4), Haemaphysalis humerosa (n=13), Haemaphysalis longicornis (n=4), Ixodes antechini (n=29), Ixodes australiensis (n=26), Ixodes fecialis (n=13), Ixodes holocyclus (n=37), Ixodes myrmecobii (n=1), Ixodes ornithorhynchi (n=10), Ixodes tasmani (n=51) and Ixodes trichosuri (n=3). After bioinformatic analyses, over 14 million assigned bacterial sequences revealed the presence of recently described bacteria 'Candidatus Borrelia tachyglossi', 'Candidatus Neoehrlichia australis', 'Candidatus Neoehrlichia arcana' and 'Candidatus Ehrlichia ornithorhynchi'. Furthermore, three novel Anaplasmataceae species were identified in the present study including; a Neoehrlichia sp. in I. australiensis and I. fecialis collected from quenda (Isoodon fusciventer) (Western Australia), an Anaplasma sp. from one B. concolor from echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) (New South Wales), and an Ehrlichia sp. from a single I. fecialis parasitising a quenda (WA). This study highlights the diversity of bacterial genera harboured within wildlife ticks, which may prove to be of medical and/or veterinary importance in the future.

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Section: Fecialismentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial community profiling highlights complex diversity and novel organisms in wildlife ticks

Egan

Loh

Banks

et al. 2020

Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases

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“…Otherwise, abiotic factors such as temperature, that is likely to follow a yearly redundant pattern, have been demonstrated to influence the microbiota diversity of I. scapularis ticks [46]. Furthermore, blood meal and host identity were also shown to influence the tick microbiota diversity [11,41,69,70]. Finally, considering the life cycle of ticks, one other potential hypothesis explaining this pattern is that tick microbiota structure and composition could be related to the feeding status of ticks.…”

Section: • Temporal Variability Of Ixodes Ricinus Microbiotamentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal patterns inIxodes ricinusmicrobial communities: an insight into tick-borne microbe interactions

Lejal

Chiquet

Aubert

et al. 2020

Preprint

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BackgroundTicks transmit pathogens of medical and veterinary importance, and represent an increasing threat for human and animal health. Important steps in assessing disease risk and developing possible new future control strategies involve identifying tick-borne microbes, their temporal dynamics and interactions.MethodsUsing high throughput sequencing, we studied the microbiota dynamics of Ixodes ricinus from 371 nymphs collected monthly over three consecutive years in a peri-urban forest. After adjusting a Poisson Log Normal model to our data set, the implementation of a principal component analysis as well as sparse network reconstruction and differential analysis allowed us to assess inter-annual, seasonal and monthly variability of I. ricinus microbial communities as well as their interactions.ResultsAround 75% of the detected sequences belonged to five genera known to be maternally inherited bacteria in arthropods and potentially circulating in ticks: Candidatus Midichloria, Rickettsia, Spiroplasma, Arsenophonus and Wolbachia. The structure of the I. ricinus microbiota was temporally variable with interannual recurrence and seemed to be mainly driven by OTUs belonging to environmental genera. The total network analysis revealed a majority of positive (partial) correlations. We identified strong relationships between OTUs belonging to Wolbachia and Arsenophonus, betraying the presence of the parasitoid wasp Ixodiphagus hookeri in ticks, and the well known arthropod symbiont Spiroplasma, previously documented to be involved in the defense against parasitoid wasp in Drosophila melanogaster. Other associations were observed between the tick symbiont Candidatus Midichloria and pathogens belonging to Rickettsia, probably Rickettsia helvetica. More specific network analysis finally suggested that the presence of pathogens belonging to genera Borrelia, Anaplasma and Rickettsia might disrupt microbial interactions in I. ricinus.ConclusionsHere, we identified the I. ricinus microbiota and documented for the first time the existence and recurrence of marked temporal shifts in the tick microbial community dynamics. We statistically showed strong relationships between the presence of some pathogens and the structure of the I. ricinus non-pathogenic microbes. We interestingly detected close links between some tick symbionts and the potential presence of either pathogenic Rickettsia or a parasitoid in ticks. All these new findings might be very promising for the future development of new control strategies of ticks and tick-borne diseases.

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“…However, we have excluded common environmental microbes demonstrated to be artifacts from contaminated reagents, such as Delftia, Comamonas, Acidovorax, and others (Salter et al, 2014). Sequence-based studies indicate a larger variety of bacterial residents may temporarily survive in this tick species (Benson et al, 2004;Narasimhan et al, 2014;Rynkiewicz et al, 2015;Van Treuren et al, 2015;Zolnik et al, 2016Zolnik et al, , 2018Abraham et al, 2017;Cross et al, 2018;Landesman et al, 2019;Tokarz et al, 2019), but other reports suggest that many of the detectable bacteria from such studies may have been of environmental origin or introduced from contaminated reagents (Martin and Schmidtmann, 1998;Salter et al, 2014;Ross et al, 2018;Zolnik et al, 2018).…”

Section: Microbiota Of I Scapularismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…R. buchneri is not known to infect vertebrate hosts but is an obligate symbiont of I. scapularis and transmitted transovarially from the mother to the progeny. All life stages of the tick can harbor R. buchneri, though it can reach exclusive levels in the adult Burgdorfer et al, 1982;Steiner et al, 2008;Aliota et al, 2014;Tokarz et al, 2019 Borrelia Benson et al, 2004;Narasimhan et al, 2014Narasimhan et al, , 2017Zolnik et al, 2016Zolnik et al, , 2018Abraham et al, 2017;Ross et al, 2018;Landesman et al, 2019;Thapa et al, 2019 Sphingomonadaceae p 5% (L, N, A) Benson et al, 2004;Zolnik et al, 2016Zolnik et al, , 2018Abraham et al, 2017;Ross et al, 2018;Landesman et al, 2019;Thapa et al, 2019 Staphylococcus spp. p 2% (L, N, A) Narasimhan et al, 2014Narasimhan et al, , 2017Abraham et al, 2017;Zolnik et al, 2018;Thapa et al, 2019 Streptococcus spp.…”

Section: Microbiota Of I Scapularismentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing the Ride: Ixodes scapularis Symbionts and Their Interactions

Stewart

Bloom

2020

Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.

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The deer tick Ixodes scapularis transmits a variety of disease agents in the United States, spreading the bacteria that causes Lyme borreliosis, the protozoan agent of babesiosis, and viruses such as Powassan. However, a variety of other organisms have also evolved symbiotic relationships with this tick species, and it seems likely that some of these microbes have simultaneously coevolved mechanisms to impact each other and their tick host. The number of organisms identified as I. scapularis symbionts has increased seemingly exponentially with the advent of PCR and next generation sequencing technologies, but convincing arguments have proposed that some of these are of environmental origin, unadapted to surviving the physiological conditions of the tick or that they are artifacts of ultrasensitive detection methods. In this review, we examine the diversity of the known microbes occurring within the I. scapularis microbiome, the evidence for interactions between microbes, and discuss whether some organisms reported to be symbionts of I. scapularis are experimental artifacts.

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Potential effects of blood meal host on bacterial community composition in Ixodes scapularis nymphs

Cited by 43 publications

References 37 publications

Bacterial community profiling highlights complex diversity and novel organisms in wildlife ticks

Bacterial community profiling highlights complex diversity and novel organisms in wildlife ticks

Temporal patterns inIxodes ricinusmicrobial communities: an insight into tick-borne microbe interactions

Sharing the Ride: Ixodes scapularis Symbionts and Their Interactions

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