A disease-causing bacterium uses a tick (shown) salivary protein to establish infection in the insect's salivary glands.

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The bacterium Anaplasma phagocytophilum uses a tick protein to help it set up camp in the insect's salivary glands, according to Sukumaran and colleagues (page 1507).

Many tick-borne pathogens hijack host proteins to establish infection in their tick vector or mammalian host. Previous work by this group, for example, showed that the Lyme disease bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi induces the expression of the salivary protein Salp15 in infected Ixodes scapularis ticks as they feed. The bacterium then coats itself with Salp15 as it exits the tick, creating a shield against the destructive antibodies encountered in the mammalian host.

Here, Sukumaran and colleagues used a similar approach to study the obligate intracellular bacterium A. phagocytophilum, which causes a common and sometimes deadly tick-borne disease in humans...

The Rockefeller University Press
2006
The Rockefeller University Press
2006
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