EURASIAN IXODES TICK GENOTYPES, THEIR PROPERTIES AND VECTOR CAPACITY

About authors:

A. N. Alekseev, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya emb., 1, 199034 St. Petersburg,
RUSSIA
H. V. Dubinina, Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya Emb. 1, 199034 Saint Petersburg, Russia

Acknowledgments:

This study was financially supported in part by a grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Re-search, No. 04-04-49119. We would like to thank our colleagues who placed tick material from dif-ferent parts of Eurasia at our disposal: Prof. J. Siiss (Germany), Dr P.M. Jensen and Mrs Hanna Hansen (Denmark), Prof. V.G. Fedorova (Velikiy Novgo-rod, Russia), Prof. N. A. Rybakova (Vologda, Rus-sia), Dr A.D. Botvinkin and Dr G.A. Danchinova (Irkutsk, Russia), Dr E.I. Bolotin and Prof. G.N. Leonova (Vladivostok, Russia). Drs Leonid Anisy-utkin, Aleksandr Semenov, Mariya Vashukova, Mrs Olga Yushkova, Mr Sergey Zharkov, Mrs Natalia Makrushina, Ms Lubov Smirnova and Ms Irina Lyzina helped in practical work. Dr E.S. Svetashova analyzed the tick samples for the con-tent of heavy metals. Dr Sergei Golovatch correct-ed the English of an advanced draft.

 

Annotation:

То determine electrophoretypes based on malat-dehydrogenase (MDH) allele structure, as well as exoskeieton anomalies, heavy metal ion content and tick-borne pathogen infection, over 7,000 Ixo-des persulcatus Schulze and Ixodes ricinus (L.) adults and nymphs were collected by flagging in different parts of Eurasia, ranging from Denmark to the Far East of Russia, and studied.

A comparison of the distribution of I. persul-catus MDH-genotypes with areas of three geno-groups of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) existing over Eurasia suggests that the prevalence of the second virus genogroup (Western, Neudoerfl one) correlates with the first genotype of ticks (alleles 1.1, based on MDH-enzyme detection), whereas the existence of the third (Urals-Siberian, Lesopark) and, partly, first (Far Eastern) virus genogroups depends on the location of tick geno-type 4 (heterozygous, alleles 1.3 of MDH-enzyme).

Environmental pollution, the appearance of Ixodes ticks with exoskeketon anomalies which are cadmium ion-tolerant, their increasingly vast dis-tribution in time and space, all this alters tick vector capacity and behavior, enhances their capability to be dually or triple infected, and most probably to increase the emergence of microscopically invisi-ble forms (or cell wall-free, or L-form) of borreliae responsible for such dangerous consequences of Lyme disease as Parkinsonism, multiple sclerosis, neuritis etc. The difference in Cd content between the normal ticks and those with anomalous exoskel-etons varies from 1: 1.26 (Denmark) to 1:1.92 (Far East, Vladivostok Region, Russia), even up to 1:5.4 (Kalinigrad Region, near a highway).

 

 

 

 

Genetic (enzymological) and phenetic (hered-itary) analyses of the heterogeneity of Ixodes pop-ulation structure can serve as a powerful tool for the understanding of the intimate properties of Ixodes ticks determining their distribution, vector capacity and dangerousness.

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