Viruses, Vol. 11, Pages 529: The Ecology of New Constituents of the Tick Virome and Their Relevance to Public Health

Viruses, Vol. 11, Pages 529: The Ecology of New Constituents of the Tick Virome and Their Relevance to Public Health Viruses doi: 10.3390/v11060529 Authors: Kurt J. Vandegrift Amit Kapoor Ticks are vectors of several pathogens that can be transmitted to humans and their geographic ranges are expanding. The exposure of ticks to new hosts in a rapidly changing environment is likely to further increase the prevalence and diversity of tick-borne diseases. Although ticks are known to transmit bacteria and viruses, most studies of tick-borne disease have focused upon Lyme disease, which is caused by infection with Borrelia burgdorferi. Until recently, ticks were considered as the vectors of a few viruses that can infect humans and animals, such as Powassan, Tick-Borne Encephalitis and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses. Interestingly, however, several new studies undertaken to reveal the etiology of unknown human febrile illnesses, or to describe the virome of ticks collected in different countries, have uncovered a plethora of novel viruses in ticks. Here, we compared the virome compositions of ticks from different countries and our analysis indicates that the global tick virome is dominated by RNA viruses. Comparative phylogenetic analyses of tick viruses from these different countries reveals distinct geographical clustering of the new tick viruses. Some of these new tick RNA viruses (notably severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus and Hear...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research