Identification of Novel Viruses in Amblyomma americanum, Dermacentor variabilis, and Ixodes scapularis Ticks.

ABSTRACT: Ticks carry a wide range of known human and animal pathogens and are postulated to carry others with the potential to cause disease. Here we report a discovery effort wherein unbiased high-throughput sequencing was used to characterize the virome of 2,021 ticks, including Ixodes scapularis (n = 1,138), Amblyomma americanum (n = 720), and Dermacentor variabilis (n = 163), collected in New York, Connecticut, and Virginia in 2015 and 2016. We identified 33 viruses, including 24 putative novel viral species. The most frequently detected viruses were phylogenetically related to members of the Bunyaviridae and Rhabdoviridae families, as well as the recently proposed Chuviridae. Our work expands our understanding of tick viromes and underscores the high viral diversity that is present in ticks. I

SUBMITTER: Tokarz R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5853492 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature