New research finds a toxin from ancient bacteria helps ticks survive and transfer Lyme disease to the humans they're feeding on.
A Live Science report indicates that eons of competition between microbes resulted in many "to develop antibacterial substances" to survive' and through a process called "horizontal gene transfer," some of these genes carrying instructions for developing the said substances hopped through species from microbes to other types of organisms.
Roughly 40 million years ago, the deer tick or Ixodes scrapularis acquired only such a strong antibacterial enzyme from ancient bacteria, and the study authors reported in 2015 the Nature journal.
For this new research, some of the same scientists searched for further understanding of how this toxin, after years of developing inside the tick, affects the critters.
Toxin Tested
To find an answer to their quest, the scientists examined the toxin called domesticated amidase effector or Dae2 against various types of bacteria in the laboratory.
The same report, published by Vectors Journal said, to find an answer to their quest, the researchers found that Dae2 effectively "killed mammalian skin microbes like Staphylococci, although it did not kill the bacteria living in some ticks also known as Borrelia burgdorferi, and can cause Lyme disease when transferred to humans.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lyme disease "is a tick-borne illness that can cause fever, fatigue, headache, and bulls-eye-like skin rash."
They found that the toxin is secreted into the digestive system of the tick while the parasite feeds, and from there, transfers from saliva to the area of the tick bite.
In a statement, a biochemistry professor at University of California San Francisco Seemay Chou, the senior author, said when the blocked toxin in deer ticks and had them exposed to microbes found on human skin, the ticks then begin to die.
First Identified Bacterial Species that Can Harm Ticks
In connection to what the professor said about the blocked toxin, this allows ticks to feed safely on human and mammalian blood.
Such protection enables the ticks to spend long periods feeding, adequate for the Lyme bacteria to transfer from the ticks to humans.
"What's sable and harmonious for the ticks," according to the senior author, is bad for humans, and what's "stable and harmonious" with the human skin is bad for ticks.
This is the first time the study authors have identified a particular bacterial species that can harm ticks, explained Chou.
There has been a growing interest in containing vector-borne illnesses such as malaria, which is brought by mosquitoes by killing the vector instead of just the pathogen leading to the disease.
Such methods are already currently being employed to control mosquito populations all over the world. Chou added, it could really be interesting to see if the same method would work for tick-borne illnesses, for example, by producing microbes that are bad for ticks, although not harmful to humans.
The research team is hoping to zoom in on what's happening on the skin at the tick bite's actual area. They think that there could be a "dual role of these antimicrobials."
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