Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread

Ticks are important vectors of emerging zoonotic diseases affecting human and animal health worldwide. Ticks are often found on wild birds, which have been long recognized as a potential risk factor for dissemination of ticks and tick-borne pathogens (TBP), thus raising societal concerns and prompti...

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Main Authors:	de la Fuente, José, Estrada-Peña, Agustín, Cabezas-Cruz, Alejandro, Brey, Ricardo
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	BioMed Central 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4607018/

id	pubmed-4607018
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46070182015-10-16 Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread de la Fuente, José Estrada-Peña, Agustín Cabezas-Cruz, Alejandro Brey, Ricardo Review Ticks are important vectors of emerging zoonotic diseases affecting human and animal health worldwide. Ticks are often found on wild birds, which have been long recognized as a potential risk factor for dissemination of ticks and tick-borne pathogens (TBP), thus raising societal concerns and prompting research into their biology and ecology. To fully understand the role of birds in disseminating some ticks species and TBP, it is important to consider the evolutionary relationships between birds, ticks and transmitted pathogens. In this paper we reviewed the possible role of birds in the dissemination of TBP as a result of the evolution of host-tick-pathogen associations. Birds are central elements in the ecological networks of ticks, hosts and TBP. The study of host-tick-pathogen associations reveals a prominent role for birds in the dissemination of Borrelia spp. and Anaplasma phagocytophilum, with little contribution to the possible dissemination of other TBP. Birds have played a major role during tick evolution, which explains why they are by far the most important hosts supporting the ecological networks of ticks and several TBP. The immune response of birds to ticks and TBP has been largely overlooked. To implement effective measures for the control of tick-borne diseases, it is necessary to study bird-tick and bird-pathogen molecular interactions including the immune response of birds to tick infestation and pathogen infection. BioMed Central 2015-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC4607018/ /pubmed/26467109 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-015-1154-1 Text en © de la Fuente et al. 2015 Open AccessThis 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. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	de la Fuente, José Estrada-Peña, Agustín Cabezas-Cruz, Alejandro Brey, Ricardo
spellingShingle	de la Fuente, José Estrada-Peña, Agustín Cabezas-Cruz, Alejandro Brey, Ricardo Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
author_facet	de la Fuente, José Estrada-Peña, Agustín Cabezas-Cruz, Alejandro Brey, Ricardo
author_sort	de la Fuente, José
title	Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
title_short	Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
title_full	Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
title_fullStr	Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
title_full_unstemmed	Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
title_sort	flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread
description	Ticks are important vectors of emerging zoonotic diseases affecting human and animal health worldwide. Ticks are often found on wild birds, which have been long recognized as a potential risk factor for dissemination of ticks and tick-borne pathogens (TBP), thus raising societal concerns and prompting research into their biology and ecology. To fully understand the role of birds in disseminating some ticks species and TBP, it is important to consider the evolutionary relationships between birds, ticks and transmitted pathogens. In this paper we reviewed the possible role of birds in the dissemination of TBP as a result of the evolution of host-tick-pathogen associations. Birds are central elements in the ecological networks of ticks, hosts and TBP. The study of host-tick-pathogen associations reveals a prominent role for birds in the dissemination of Borrelia spp. and Anaplasma phagocytophilum, with little contribution to the possible dissemination of other TBP. Birds have played a major role during tick evolution, which explains why they are by far the most important hosts supporting the ecological networks of ticks and several TBP. The immune response of birds to ticks and TBP has been largely overlooked. To implement effective measures for the control of tick-borne diseases, it is necessary to study bird-tick and bird-pathogen molecular interactions including the immune response of birds to tick infestation and pathogen infection.
publisher	BioMed Central
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4607018/
_version_	1613488646384517120

Flying ticks: anciently evolved associations that constitute a risk of infectious disease spread

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