ABSTRACT: Ticks are a kind of obligate blood-sucking in vitro parasitic arthropods, which can carry and transmit a variety of extremely harmful pathogens. They greatly threaten the health of humans and wildlife and seriously affect livestock production. In recent years, with global warming, the growth, reproduction, and behavior of ticks have been significantly affected. Therefore, it is particularly important to study how high temperature affects ticks and how ticks adopt effective behavioral strategies and physiological adjustment mechanisms to cope with high temperatures. Phosphorylation, the most common posttranslational modification of proteins, plays an important role in cell signal transduction, gene expression, and rapid regulation of the cell cycle. The regulation strategy of protein phosphorylation under high-temperature conditions is of great significance to organisms. In order to explore the effect of high temperature on ticks, this study systematically studied the phosphorylation changes of proteins in the salivary gland, midgut, ovary, and malpighian tubules of ticks at different temperatures of 26°C, 36°C and 45°C by quantitative proteomics. The continuously up-regulated and down-regulated phosphorylated proteins under the influence of high temperature were selected and subjected to GO analysis, pathway analysis, Motif analysis, and kinase prediction. The results showed that each tissue of ticks has its own unique way of coping with high-temperature stress. In the four tissues, a large number of phosphorylated proteins were enriched in terms and pathways related to splicing and regulation of RNA splicing. It may indicate that the protein diversity caused by RNA alternative splicing plays an important role in the response of ticks to high-temperature stress. In addition, RNAi results showed that PKC, GRK, and CDC37 can interact with each other and play an important role in the process of H. longicornis resisting high temperature. CDC37 can also improve the survival rate of H. longicornis in high temperatures. This study lays a foundation for revealing the molecular regulation mechanism of ticks in response to high-temperature stress and is of great significance for a comprehensive understanding of the molecular regulation strategies of ticks to adapt to global warming.
Hui Wang 
