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Bogumiła Skotarczak

Szczecin University, Poland

Title: The potential role of Ixodes ricinus ticks in life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii

Biography

Biography: Bogumiła Skotarczak

Abstract

Ixodes ricinus as a blood-sucking tick uses many of wild and domestic animal species as hosts. Almost each of Toxoplasma gondii intermediate host may serve as a source of blood for each tick stage. In  this  way,  an  infected  tick  may take part in the spread of T. gondii in the environment through the transmission of this parasite between  different host species. In this way, ticks may increase the number of infected specimens among hosts populations.

How Ixodes ricinus takes part in the life cycle of T. gondii ?

I. ricinus takes part in the life cycle of T. gondii as a mechanical or even biological vector. Even though the tick does not transmit T. gondii to  other  host  mammals,  it may take infection from them after  molting and increases  populations of infected ticks. The mammalian hosts digest infected ticks and in this way T. gondii is transmitted, what explains  herbivorous  infection,  rodents  and  birds infection. In this case, ticks do not transmit T. gondii to other  hosts  but  serve  as  reservoir  host  for T. gondii,  however  it  requires  more  studies. 

Ixodes ricinus may help to explain the wide spread  of  this  parasite

Toxoplasmosis is globally distributed, water- and food borne zoonosis caused by that single protozoan and probably one-third of the world’s human population is infected with this pathogen. Human as other of the intermediate hosts may become infected in the main route of infection; it is the ingestion of parasite oocysts in contaminated water or soil and undercooked meat. However, the mechanism which this parasite uses to so large spread is not fully understood, because oral transmission does not explain the common event of this parasite in a variety of hosts. Thus, ticks may help to explain the wide spread  of  this  parasite  in  almost  all  geographical areas and warm blooded animals, but there is need to establish whether they are an important infection source for toxoplasmosis.

Our study

We examined 1737 feeding  I.  ricinus  ticks collected  from  49  Shetland ponies (Imno Stud, Poland) and 371 questing ticks using B1 gene based PCR and sequencing of positive samples for genotyping of T. gondii. T.  gondii  genotype  I  pathogenic for humans was  detected in  4.5%  of  all  I.  ricinus,  including  in  2.99%  of  feeding  ticks  and  in  10.24%  of  questing  ticks and the difference was statistically  significant. Our  results  confirmed  the  presence  of  T.  gondii  in  I. ricinus  and  showed  a  new  geographical  habitat  of  T.  gondii  occurring  in  I.  ricinus  ticks  in  Poland.