Strain-Dependent Assessment of Powassan Virus Transmission to <i>Ixodes scapularis</i> Ticks.

ABSTRACT: Powassan virus (POWV) is an emerging tick-borne encephalitic virus in Lyme disease-endemic sites in North America. Due to range expansion and local intensification of blacklegged tick vector (Ixodes scapularis) populations in the northeastern and upper midwestern U.S., human encephalitis cases are increasingly being reported. A better understanding of the transmission cycle between POWV and ticks is required in order to better predict and understand their public health burden. Recent phylogeographic analyses of POWV have identified geographical structuring, with well-defined northeastern and midwestern clades of the lineage II subtype. The extent that geographic and genetically defined sublineages differ in their ability to infect and be transmitted by blacklegged ticks is unclear.

SUBMITTER: McMinn RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11209038 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature