Establishment of Babesia microti laboratory model and its experimental application

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Jalovecka, Marie | Urbanova, Veronika | Sojka, Daniel | Malandrin, Laurence | Sima, Radek | Kopacek, Petr | Hajdusek, Ondrej

Edité par CCSD -

International audience. Growing incidence of human infections by protozoan parasite Babesia microti defines babesiosis as an emerging disease from the aspect of human medicine and currently the great attention is paid to research of Babesia, the tick-transmitted malaria relative. However, the knowledge about interactions between the Babesia parasite and its tick vector is still insufficient, particularly due to the absence of quantitative laboratory babesiosis model. We introduce here the fully optimized model of B. microti employing infected laboratory mice and immature tick stages of Ixodes ricinus. Detailed information about parasite dissemination inside the tick tissues are given by newly implemented visualization and quantification techniques. Special emphasis is paid to parasite stages inside the salivary glands, the primary site responsible for Babesia transmission from the vector into the host. Using specific gene silencing we screened the tick immune pathways and evaluated their role in Babesia microti acquisition. Overall, our results provide detailed view into mutual molecular and immune interactions between the most common agent of human babesiosis and its tick vector and thus significantly contribute to a potential control of babesiosis. Supported by GACR grant No. 15-12006Y (VU), 17-27393S (RS), 17-27386S (OH), GACR 17-14631S (DS), and INRA, France. M. J. is supported by the Dual Czech- French PhD. program.

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