3/20/2024 0 Comments Tick identification missouriWhile the complex transmission cycle for Lyme disease is well characterized, many questions remain about how the Heartland virus moves among different species. The infected larvae grow into nymphs and adult ticks that can then move into other hosts, including deer and humans. The tick larvae can become infected when they feed on the blood of the mice and other small mammals and birds that may be harboring the bacterium. The black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick, is the vector for transmission of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and the white-footed mouse is the primary reservoir for the bacterium. One of the most well-known tick-borne illnesses is Lyme disease, caused by a bacterium, which in recent decades has grown into the most common vector-borne disease in the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recognizes 18 tick-borne diseases in the United States, many of them newly emerging. Further studies found antibodies to the virus in blood samples from deer and some other wild mammals. Researchers soon realized the men were infected with a novel virus, which was christened Heartland, and later traced to lone star ticks. The Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 in northwest Missouri after two local men were hospitalized with high fevers, diarrhea, muscle pains, low counts of white blood cells and platelets, and other symptoms similar to known tick-borne diseases. “These results suggest that the virus may be evolving very rapidly in different geographic locations, or that it may be circulating primarily in isolated areas and not dispersing quickly between those areas,” Vazquez-Prokopec says. The genetic analysis of the three viral samples showed that their genomes are similar to one another, but much different from the genomes of Heartland virus samples from outside the state. The study detected Heartland virus in three different specimen samples of lone star ticks - collected in different locations and at different times - and including both the nymph and adult stages of the ticks. “They represent a large threat to human health that a lot of people may not realize.” Bellman is an MD/PhD student in Emory’s School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health. “Ticks are both fascinating and terrifying,” says study co-author Steph Bellman, shown in the field with a vial of ticks. Co-author Anne Piantadosi, assistant professor in Emory School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, conducted the genetic analyses. Yamila Romer, a former post-doctoral fellow in the Vazquez-Prokopec lab, is first author of the new paper. Vazquez-Prokopec is a leading expert in vector-borne diseases - infections transmitted from one organism to another by the bite of a vector, such as a tick or mosquito. “We’re trying to get ahead of this virus by learning everything that we can about it before it potentially becomes a bigger problem.” “Heartland is an emerging infectious disease that is not well understood,” says Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, associate professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences and senior author of the study. The research adds new evidence for how the tick-borne Heartland virus, first identified in Missouri in 2009, may evolve and spread geographically and from one organism to another. The journal Emerging Infectious Diseases published the findings, which include a genetic analysis of the virus samples, isolated from ticks collected in central Georgia. Heartland virus is circulating in lone star ticks in Georgia, scientists at Emory University have found, confirming active transmission of the virus within the state.
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