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Animals
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Novel Insights into the Diagnosis, Diversity, Phylogeny, and Control of...
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Novel Insights into the Diagnosis, Diversity, Phylogeny, and Control of Ticks that Infest Animals

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 4523

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mourad Ben Said

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Basic Sciences, Higher Institute of Biotechnology of Sidi Thabet, University of Manouba, Manouba 2010, Tunisia
2. Laboratory of Microbiology, National School of Veterinary Medicine of Sidi Thabet, University of Manouba, Manouba 2010, Tunisia
Interests: ticks; tick-borne pathogens; diagnosis; phylogeny; control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Abdullah Alanazi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Humanities, Shaqra University, P.O. Box 1040, Ad-Dawadimi 11911, Saudi Arabia
Interests: ticks; mitogenomic; diagnosis; neotype

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ticks are obligate blood‐sucking arthropods found in most parts of the world. More than 900 tick species have been identified to date worldwide, and most of them belong to two families: the Ixodidae, or hard ticks, and the Argasidae, or soft ticks. These ectoparasites are important to animals through the direct effects of their feeding and through acting as vectors of various disease agents. Indeed, nearly twenty tick-borne diseases of livestock and companion animals have been described to date. The frequency of several tick‐borne diseases and their geographic distribution are increasing, in part due to climatic changes. Owing to the medical and economic importance of ticks, more and more studies have paid more attention to tick biology, tick ecology, and tick‐borne diseases, especially reports of emerging and re-emerging tick‐borne pathogens in recent years. These extensive efforts provide valuable data for tick control. However, studies focusing on geographic distribution, host diversity, and ticks’ specificity as well as control remain limited.

This Special Issue aims to publish work on three main aspects: (i) the spatiotemporal epidemiology and diversity of ticks that infest livestock and companion animals; (ii) the phylogeny and phylogeography of revealed isolates of investigated tick species; and (iii) the control of ticks by creating new as well as effective vaccines and acaricidal chemicals.

Future studies on this topic should describe more thoroughly the geographical distribution, host diversity, and specificity of ticks, in addition to creating and/or confirming molecular and computational methods for more informative tick species’ identification and isolates’ characterization in different worldwide ecosystems.

For this Special Issue of Animals, we invite you to submit original research or review articles in order to contribute to the expanding knowledge on the geographic distribution and diversity of ticks that infest animals around the world, as well as to the search for novel tick candidate vaccines and acaricide molecules.

We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Mourad Ben Said
Prof. Dr. Abdullah Alanazi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

 

Keywords

  • ticks

  • geographic distribution
  • spatiotemporal epidemiology
  • tick diversity and specificity
  • host diversity
  • phylogeny
  • phylogeography
  • livestock
  • companion animals

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 3254 KiB  
Article
In Vitro and In Silico Protocols for the Assessment of Anti-Tick Compounds from Pinus roxburghii against Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus Ticks
by Sana Ayub, Nosheen Malak, Raquel Cossío-Bayúgar, Nasreen Nasreen, Afshan Khan, Sadaf Niaz, Adil Khan, Abdallah D. Alanazi and Mourad Ben Said
Animals 2023, 13(8), 1388; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13081388 - 18 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1936
Abstract
Pinus roxburghii, also known by the name “Himalayan chir pine,” belongs to the Pinaceae family. Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus tick is one of the most significant bovine ectoparasites, making it a major vector of economically important tick-borne diseases. The researchers conducted [...] Read more.
Pinus roxburghii, also known by the name “Himalayan chir pine,” belongs to the Pinaceae family. Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus tick is one of the most significant bovine ectoparasites, making it a major vector of economically important tick-borne diseases. The researchers conducted adult immersion tests (AIT) and larval packet tests (LPT) to investigate the acaricidal effect of P. roxburghii plant extract on R. (B.) microplus and its potential modulatory function when used with cypermethrin. Eggs were also assessed for their weight, egg-laying index (IE), hatchability rate, and control rate. After exposure to essential extract concentrations ranging from 2.5 to 40 mg/mL for 48 h, adult female ticks’ oviposition inhibition and unfed R. (B.) microplus larvae’s mortality rates were analyzed. Engorged females exposed to P. roxburghii at 40 mg/mL had reduced biological activity (oviposition, IE) compared to positive and negative controls. A concentration of 40 mg/mL of P. roxburghii caused 90% mortality in R. (B.) microplus larvae, whereas cypermethrin (the positive control) caused 98.3% mortality in LPT. In AIT, cypermethrin inhibited 81% of oviposition, compared to the 40 mg/mL concentration of P. roxburghii, which inhibited 40% of the ticks’ oviposition. Moreover, this study assessed the binding capacity of selected phytocompounds with the targeted protein. Three servers (SWISS-MODEL, RoseTTAFold, and TrRosetta) recreated the target protein RmGABACl’s 3D structure. The modeled 3D structure was validated using the online servers PROCHECK, ERRAT, and Prosa. Molecular docking using Auto Dock VINA predicted the binding mechanisms of 20 drug-like compounds against the target protein. Catechin and myricetin showed significant interactions with active site residues of the target protein, with docking scores of −7.7 kcal/mol and −7.6 kcal/mol, respectively. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the acaricidal activity of P. roxburghii extract, suggesting its potential as an alternative natural acaricide for controlling R. (B.) microplus. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Insights into the Diagnosis, Diversity, Phylogeny, and Control of Ticks that Infest Animals)
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Review

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17 pages, 387 KiB  
Review
Universal Tick Vaccines: Candidates and Remaining Challenges
by Luís Fernando Parizi, Naftaly Wang’ombe Githaka, Carlos Logullo, Jinlin Zhou, Misao Onuma, Carlos Termignoni and Itabajara da Silva Vaz, Jr.
Animals 2023, 13(12), 2031; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13122031 - 19 Jun 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1989
Abstract
Recent advancements in molecular biology, particularly regarding massively parallel sequencing technologies, have enabled scientists to gain more insight into the physiology of ticks. While there has been progress in identifying tick proteins and the pathways they are involved in, the specificities of tick-host [...] Read more.
Recent advancements in molecular biology, particularly regarding massively parallel sequencing technologies, have enabled scientists to gain more insight into the physiology of ticks. While there has been progress in identifying tick proteins and the pathways they are involved in, the specificities of tick-host interaction at the molecular level are not yet fully understood. Indeed, the development of effective commercial tick vaccines has been slower than expected. While omics studies have pointed to some potential vaccine immunogens, selecting suitable antigens for a multi-antigenic vaccine is very complex due to the participation of redundant molecules in biological pathways. The expansion of ticks and their pathogens into new territories and exposure to new hosts makes it necessary to evaluate vaccine efficacy in unusual and non-domestic host species. This situation makes ticks and tick-borne diseases an increasing threat to animal and human health globally, demanding an urgent availability of vaccines against multiple tick species and their pathogens. This review discusses the challenges and advancements in the search for universal tick vaccines, including promising new antigen candidates, and indicates future directions in this crucial research field. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Insights into the Diagnosis, Diversity, Phylogeny, and Control of Ticks that Infest Animals)
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