1. Characterization of the bacterial microbiota in wild-caught Ixodes ventalloi
- Author
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Isabel G. Fernández de Mera, José de la Fuente, Angélica Hernández-Jarguín, Alessandra Torina, Sandra Díaz-Sánchez, Valeria Blanda, Christian Gortázar, Santo Caracappa, European Commission, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España), and Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (México)
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,DNA, Bacterial ,Anaplasma ,030231 tropical medicine ,Zoology ,Tick ,Microbiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Borrelia ,RNA, Ribosomal, 16S ,Shotgun-metagenomics ,Animals ,Symbiosis ,Pathogen ,Sicily ,Phylogeny ,biology ,Ixodes ,Microbiota ,High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing ,biology.organism_classification ,Wild caught ,030104 developmental biology ,Infectious Diseases ,Microbial population biology ,Insect Science ,Ixodes ventalloi ,Parasitology ,Female ,Vector ,Metagenomics ,Bacteria - Abstract
Exploring the microbial diversity of ticks is crucial to understand geographical dispersion and pathogen transmission. Tick microbes participate in many biological processes implicated in the acquisition, maintenance, and transmission of pathogens, and actively promote host phenotypic changes, and adaptation to new environments. The microbial community of Ixodes ventalloi still remains unexplored. In this study, the bacterial microbiota of wild-caught I. ventalloi was characterized using shotgun-metagenomic sequencing in samples from unfed adults collected during December 2013-January 2014 in two locations from Sicily, Italy. The microbiota identified in I. ventalloi was mainly composed of symbiotic, commensal, and environmental bacteria. Interestingly, we identified the genera Anaplasma and Borrelia as members of the microbiota of I. ventalloi. These results advance our information on I. ventalloi microbiota composition, with potential implications in tick-host adaptation, geographic expansion, and vector competence., This work was financially supported by the H2020 Collaborative Management Platform for detection and Analyses of (Re-) emerging and foodborne outbreaks in Europe (COMPARE) Grant 643476. We thank the Juan de la Cierva incorporación grants funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy, and the Program for Teacher Development for the Superior Type (PRODEP, México) for post-doctoral and pre-doctoral fellowship support.
- Published
- 2018