Journal article
The diversity and evolutionary relationships of ticks and tick-borne bacteria collected in China
Parasites & Vectors, Vol.15, pp.1-14
2022
PMCID: PMC9526939
PMID: 36182913
Abstract
Background
Ticks (order Ixodida) are ectoparasites, vectors and reservoirs of many infectious agents affecting humans and domestic animals. However, the lack of information on tick genomic diversity leaves significant gaps in the understanding of the evolution of ticks and associated bacteria.
Results
We collected > 20,000 contemporary and historical (up to 60 years of preservation) tick samples representing a wide range of tick biodiversity across diverse geographic regions in China. Metagenomic sequencing was performed on individual ticks to obtain the complete or near-complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequences from 46 tick species, among which mitochondrial genomes of 23 species were recovered for the first time. These new mt genomes data greatly expanded the diversity of many tick groups and revealed five cryptic species. Utilizing the same metagenomic sequence data we identified divergent and abundant bacteria in Haemaphysalis, Ixodes, Dermacentor and Carios ticks, including nine species of pathogenetic bacteria and potentially new species within the genus Borrelia. We also used these data to explore the evolutionary relationship between ticks and their associated bacteria, revealing a pattern of long-term co-divergence relationship between ticks and Rickettsia and Coxiella bacteria.
Conclusions
In sum, our study provides important new information on the genetic diversity of ticks based on an analysis of mitochondrial DNA as well as on the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens in China. It also sheds new light on the long-term evolutionary and ecological relationships between ticks and their associated bacteria.
Details
- Title
- The diversity and evolutionary relationships of ticks and tick-borne bacteria collected in China
- Authors
- JunHua Tian - Huazhong Agricultural UniversityXin Hou - Sun Yat-sen UniversityMiHong Ge - Wuhan Academy of Agricultural SciencesHongBin Xu - Jiangxi Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China)Bin Yu - Wuhan Center for Disease Control and PreventionJing Liu - Wuhan Center for Disease Control and PreventionRenFu Shao - University of the Sunshine CoastEdward C. Holmes - The University of SydneyChaoLiang Lei (Corresponding Author) - Huazhong Agricultural UniversityMang Shi (Corresponding Author) - Sun Yat-sen University
- Publication details
- Parasites & Vectors, Vol.15, pp.1-14
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
- Date published
- 2022
- DOI
- 10.1186/s13071-022-05485-3
- ISSN
- 1756-3305
- PMID
- 36182913; PMC9526939
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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 in a credit line to the data.
- Data Availability
- The tick mt genome sequences reported in this study are available on NCBI, under accession number OM368288-OM368330, MK344649. Sequence alignments underlying analyses, phylogenetic trees and related code are available from figshare (https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/The_diversity_and_evolutionary_relationships_of_ticks_and_tick-borne_bacteria_in_China/19354481). Raw sequencing data are available at the NCBI SRA database as BioProject PRJNA816261 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA816261).
- Grant note
- This work was funded by Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (KQTD20200820145822023), Guangdong Province “Pearl River Talent Plan” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team Project (2019ZT08Y464), “Medical youth top talent project of Hubei” Fellowship and Science and Technology Project of Jiangxi (20142BBG70097).
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991261896102621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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