Metatranscriptomic profiling reveals diverse tick-borne bacteria, protozoans and viruses in ticks and wildlife from Australia.

ABSTRACT: Tick-borne zoonoses are emerging globally due to changes in climate and land use. While the zoonotic threats associated with ticks are well studied elsewhere, in Australia, the diversity of potentially zoonotic agents carried by ticks and their significance to human and animal health is not sufficiently understood. To this end, we used untargeted metatranscriptomics to audit the prokaryotic, eukaryotic and viral biomes of questing ticks and wildlife blood samples from two urban and rural sites in New South Wales, Australia. Ixodes holocyclus and Haemaphysalis bancrofti were the main tick species collected, and blood samples from Rattus rattus, Rattus fuscipes, Perameles nasuta and Trichosurus vulpecula were also collected and screened for tick-borne microorganisms using metatranscriptomics

SUBMITTER: Gofton AW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9790515 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature