Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Identifying ticks of genus Hyalomma using the COI gene from preserved old specimens – a significant approach for controlling zoonotic diseases


Affiliations
1 Maaty Biodiversity Conservation and Societal Research Organization, Dehradun 248 001, India., India
2 Zoological Survey of India, Prani Vigyan Bhawan, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata 700 053, India., India
3 Northern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, 218, Kaulagarh Road, Dehradun 248 195, India., India
 

Ticks are vectors for a range of human and animal diseases. Accurate species identification is a crucial step for effective pest management, as each species plays host to specific parasites. Species identification based on morphological characteristics is prone to error in cryptic species. Molecular techniques have been used in recent times for accurate species identification; however, few studies are available on Indian tick species. The present study aims to bridge this gap in species identification of Hyalomma ticks from India using conventional morphological and recent molecular methods. We also studied the evolutionary relationships between species using a phylogenetic approach. The study included historical samples (N = 14) representing four species obtained from the National Zoological Collection of the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata. Genetic analysis was done using universal barcoding with COI primers. The results indicate a 99–100% match between the genetic and morphological analyses for the four samples of Hyalomma species collected, i.e. Hyalomma hussaini, Hyalomma aegyptium, Hyalomma kumari and Hyalomma anatolicum. The findings were also supported by phylogenetic and evolutionary tree analyses. The present study is helpful in identifying tick species using integrated approach, interpreting evolutionary relationships between different species, and solving taxonomic problems.

Keywords

Accurate Species Identification, Evolutionary Divergence, Genetic Analysis, Hyalomma, Phylogenetic Tree, Zoonotic Diseases.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • WHO, Vector control – methods for use by individuals and communities, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1997.

  • Eskezia, B. G. and Desta, A. H., Review on the impact of ticks on livestock health and productivity. J. Biol. Agric. Healthcare, 2016, 6, 1–7.

  • Matthysse, J. G. and Colbo, M. H., The Ixodid Ticks of Uganda, Ecological Society of America, College Park, Maryland, USA, 1987, p. 426.

  • Camicas, J. L., Hervy, J. P., Adam, F. and Morel, P. C., The ticks of the world (Acarida, Ixodida): Nomenclature, Described Stages, Hosts, Distribution (including New Species Described Before 1/01/96). Orstom, Paris, 1998, p. 233; ISBN 2-7099-1418-2.

  • Hoogstraal, H., Bat ticks of the genus Argas (Ixodoidea, Argasidae). 3. The subgenus Carios, a redescription of A. (C.) vespertilionis (Latreille, 1802) and variation within an Egyptian population. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am., 1958, 51, 11–26.

  • Rees, D. J., Dioli, M. and Kirkendall, L. R., Molecules and morphology: evidence for cryptic hybridization in African Hyalomma (Acari: Ixodidae). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 2003, 27, 131–142; https://doi.org/10.1016/s1055-7903(02)00374-3

  • Dohm, D. J., Logan, T. M., Linthicum, K. J., Rossi, C. A. and Turell, M. J., Transmission of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus by Hyalomma impeltatum (Acari: Ixodidae) after experimental infection. J. Med. Entomol., 1996, 33, 848–851.

  • Gordon, S. W., Linthicum, K. J. and Moulton, J. R., Transmission of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus in two species of Hyalomma ticks from infected adults to cofeeding immature forms. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 1993, 48, 576–580.

  • Lahariya, C., Goel, M. K., Kumar, A., Puri, M. and Sodhi, A., Emergence of viral hemorrhagic fevers: is recent outbreak of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever in India an indication? J. Postgrad. Med., 2012, 58, 39–46.

  • Logan, T. M., Linthicum, K. J., Bailey, C. L., Watts, D. M. and Moulton, J. R., Experimental transmission of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus by Hyalomma truncatum Koch. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 1989, 40, 207–212.

  • Shepherd, A. J., Swanepoel, R., Cornel, A. J. and Mathee, O., Experimental studies on the replication and transmission of Crimean– Congo hemorrhagic fever virus in some African tick species. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 1989, 40, 326–331.

  • Zeller, H. G., Cornet, J. P. and Camicas, J. L., Experimental transmisión of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus by West African wild ground feeding birds to Hyalomma marginatum rufipes ticks. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 1994, 50, 676–681.

  • Mishra, A. C., Mehta, M., Mourya, D. T. and Gandhi, S., Crimean– Congo haemorrhagic fever in India. Lancet, 2011, 378, 372.

  • Chhillar, S., Chhilar, J. S. and Kaur, H., Investigations on some hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) infesting domestic buffalo and cattle from Haryana, India. J. Entomol. Zool. Stud., 2014, 2(4), 99–104.

  • Sonenshine, D. E. and Roe, R. M., Biology of Ticks, Second edition, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2013, vol. 1, p. 560; ISBN 978-0-19-974405-3 (hardcover).

  • Zhang, R. L. and Zhang, B., Prospects of using DNA barcoding for species identification and evaluation of the accuracy of sequence databases for ticks (Acari: Ixodida). Ticks Tick-Borne Dis., 2014, 5, 352–358.

  • Ben, S. M. et al., Molecular characterization of Bm86 gene orthologs from Hyalomma excavatum, Hyalomma dromedarii and Hyalomma marginatum and comparison with a vaccine candidate from Hyalomma scupense. Vet. Parasitol., 2012, 190, 230–240.

  • Lv, J., Wu, S., Zhang, Y., Zhang, T., Feng, C., Jia, G. and Lin, X., Development of a DNA barcoding system for the Ixodida (Acari: Ixodida). Mitochondrial DNA, 2013, e25(2), 142–149; https://doi. org/10.3109/19401736.2013.79205

  • Ondrejicka, D. A., Morey, K. C. and Hanner, R., HDNA barcodes identification of medically important tick species in Canada. Genome, 2017, 60(1), 74–84; https://doi.org/10.1139/gen-2015-0179.

  • Matzen da Silva, J., Creer, S., dos Santos, A., Costa, A. C., Cunha, M. R., Costa, F. O. and Carvalho, G. R., Systematic and evolutionary insights derived from mtDNA CO1 barcode diversity in the Decapoda (Crustacea: Malacostraca). PLoS ONE, 2011, 6(5), e19449; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019449

  • Kaur, H. and Chhillar, S., Phylogenetic analysis of some hard ticks from India using mitochondrial 16s rRNA. J. Appl. Biol. Biotechnol., 2016, 4(3), 024–032.

  • Livanova, N. N. et al., Genetic diversity of Ixodes pavlovskyi and I. persulcatus (Acari: Ixodidae) from the sympatric zone in the south of Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. Exp. Appl. Acarol., 2015, 67, 441–456.

  • Marrelli, M. T. et al., Taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships between neotropical species of ticks from genus Amblyomma (Acari: Ixodidae) inferred from second internal transcribed spacer sequences of rDNA. J. Med. Entomol., 2007, 44, 222–228.

  • Folmer, O., Black, M., Hoeh, W., Lutz, R. and Vrijenhoek, R., DNA primers for amplification of mitocondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I from diverse metazoanin vertebrates. Mol. Mar. Biol. Biotechnol., 1994, 3, 294–299.

  • Kumar, V. P. et al., DNA barcoding as a tool for robust identification of cervids of India and its utility in wildlife forensics. Mitochondrial DNA, Part B, 2018, 3(1), 250–255; https://doi.org/10.1080/238023- 59.2018.1438858

  • Kumar, V. P., Kumar, D. and Goyal, S. P., Wildlife DNA forensics in curbing illegal wildlife trade: species identification from seizures. Int. J. Forensic Sci. Pathol., 2014, 2(5), 38–42; http://scidoc. org/IJFP-2332-287X-02-502.php

  • Hall, T. A., BioEdit, a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symp. Ser., 1999, 41, 95–98.

  • Kimura, A., Simple method for estimating evolutionary rates of base substitutions through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. J. Mol. Evol., 1980, 16, 111—120.

  • Kumar, S., Stecher, G. and Tamura, K., MEGA7: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 7.0 for bigger datasets. Mol. Biol. Evol., 2016, 33(7), 1870–1874; https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/ msw054

  • Saitou, N. and Nei, M., The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Mol. Biol. Evol., 1987, 4, 406– 425.

  • Felsenstein, Phylogenies and the comparative method. Am. Nat., 1985, 125, 1–15.

  • Sharif, M., A revisión of the Indian Ixodidae with special reference to the collection in the Indian Museum. Rec. Zool. Sur. India, 1928, 30, 217–344.

  • Sivakumar, G., Swami, S. K., Nagarajan, G., Mehta, S. C., Tuteja, F. C., Ashraf, M. and Patil, N. V., Molecular characterization of Hyalomma dromedarii from North Western Region of India based on the gene sequences encoding calretiulin and internally transcribed spacer region. Gene Rep., 2018, 10, 141–148.


Abstract Views: 284

PDF Views: 131




  • Identifying ticks of genus Hyalomma using the COI gene from preserved old specimens – a significant approach for controlling zoonotic diseases

Abstract Views: 284  |  PDF Views: 131

Authors

Ankita Rajpoot
Maaty Biodiversity Conservation and Societal Research Organization, Dehradun 248 001, India., India
Shelley Acharya
Zoological Survey of India, Prani Vigyan Bhawan, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata 700 053, India., India
Archana Bahuguna
Northern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, 218, Kaulagarh Road, Dehradun 248 195, India., India

Abstract


Ticks are vectors for a range of human and animal diseases. Accurate species identification is a crucial step for effective pest management, as each species plays host to specific parasites. Species identification based on morphological characteristics is prone to error in cryptic species. Molecular techniques have been used in recent times for accurate species identification; however, few studies are available on Indian tick species. The present study aims to bridge this gap in species identification of Hyalomma ticks from India using conventional morphological and recent molecular methods. We also studied the evolutionary relationships between species using a phylogenetic approach. The study included historical samples (N = 14) representing four species obtained from the National Zoological Collection of the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata. Genetic analysis was done using universal barcoding with COI primers. The results indicate a 99–100% match between the genetic and morphological analyses for the four samples of Hyalomma species collected, i.e. Hyalomma hussaini, Hyalomma aegyptium, Hyalomma kumari and Hyalomma anatolicum. The findings were also supported by phylogenetic and evolutionary tree analyses. The present study is helpful in identifying tick species using integrated approach, interpreting evolutionary relationships between different species, and solving taxonomic problems.

Keywords


Accurate Species Identification, Evolutionary Divergence, Genetic Analysis, Hyalomma, Phylogenetic Tree, Zoonotic Diseases.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv124%2Fi7%2F851-857