Aguirre André de Abreu Rangel, Lobo Francisco Pereira, Cunha Rodrigo Casquero, Garcia Marcos Valério, Andreotti Renato
Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência Animal, FAMEZ, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Av. Felinto Müller, No. 2443, Vila Ipiranga, CEP 79074-460 Campo Grande, MS, Brazil; Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz Rondônia, Rua da Beira, No. 7671, Bairro Lagoa, CEP 76812-245 Porto Velho, RO, Brazil.
Embrapa Informática Agropecuária, Av. André Tosello, No. 209 Campus Unicamp, Barão Geraldo, CEP 13083-886 Campinas, SP, Brazil.
Vet Parasitol. 2016 May 15;221:30-8. doi: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2016.02.032. Epub 2016 Mar 2.
Tick infestation may cause several problems including affecting domestic animal health and reducing the production of meat and milk, among others. Resistance to several classes of acaricides have been reported, forcing researchers to search for alternative measures, such as vaccines against ticks, to ensure tick control while having no or at least low negative impacts on the environment and public health. However, the current commercially available vaccines in different strains of Rhipicephalus microplus are reported to be of low efficacy. Fortunately, reverse vaccinology approaches have shown positive results in the new generation of vaccines. On this basis, a synthetic peptide from the ATAQ protein, which is present in the gut and Malpighi tubes of R. microplus, was synthesized. The ATAQ proteins were isolated, characterized and sequenced from several species of the genus Rhipicephalus. The alignment showed 93.3% identity among DNA sequences of ATAQs from these species. Because of this, immunization trials with this peptide were conducted on mice, rabbits and cattle to evaluate the humoral immune response and the efficacy against Rhipicephalus sanguineus in addition to R. microplus. Based on recent results, we conclude that reverse vaccinology is a promising approach because it is more accurate and faster than conventional methods in the detection of potential antigens to use in anti-tick vaccines. It is not only applicable against R. microplus but also against tick species that play important roles in spreading other diseases. ATAQ proteins should be considered as the antigen in new trials to develop a multi-antigenic vaccine. Although these peptides behave as hapten and are not able to be recognized by the immune system on its own, using carriers and adjuvants helps its presentation and induces strong immune responses. Furthermore, an efficiency of 35% reduction in overall life cycle parameters was reported for R. microplus (98% for ELISA responder animals) and 47% for R. sanguineus. Although not yet enough to prevent the environment to infestation of ticks, this still constitutes a promising strategy that could be applied to integrated measures on tick control and in new research that develops anti-tick vaccines.
蜱虫侵扰可能会引发多种问题，包括影响家畜健康以及降低肉类和奶类产量等。据报道，蜱虫对几类杀螨剂产生了抗性，这迫使研究人员寻找替代措施，比如抗蜱疫苗，以确保在对环境和公众健康没有或至少负面影响较小的情况下控制蜱虫。然而，据报道，目前市场上不同品系的微小扇头蜱商业疫苗效果不佳。幸运的是，反向疫苗学方法在新一代疫苗中已显示出积极成果。在此基础上，合成了一种来自ATAQ蛋白的合成肽，该蛋白存在于微小扇头蜱的肠道和马氏管中。从扇头蜱属的几个物种中分离、鉴定并测序了ATAQ蛋白。序列比对显示这些物种的ATAQ DNA序列之间有93.3%的同一性。因此，除了微小扇头蜱外，还对小鼠、兔子和牛进行了该肽的免疫试验，以评估体液免疫反应以及对血红扇头蜱的效果。基于最近的结果，我们得出结论，反向疫苗学是一种有前景的方法，因为在检测用于抗蜱疫苗的潜在抗原方面，它比传统方法更准确、更快。它不仅适用于微小扇头蜱，还适用于在传播其他疾病中起重要作用的蜱虫物种。在新的试验中，应将ATAQ蛋白视为开发多抗原疫苗的抗原。尽管这些肽表现为半抗原，自身不能被免疫系统识别，但使用载体和佐剂有助于其呈递并诱导强烈的免疫反应。此外，据报道，微小扇头蜱的整个生命周期参数总体降低了35%（ELISA反应动物为98%），血红扇头蜱为47%。虽然这还不足以防止环境受到蜱虫侵扰，但这仍然是一种有前景的策略，可应用于蜱虫控制的综合措施以及开发抗蜱疫苗的新研究中。
