The Journal of Experimental Medicine
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Published online 22 May 2006 doi:10.1084/jem.20060208
Rockefeller University Press, 0022-1007 $8.00
JEM, Volume 203, Number 6, 1507-1517
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ARTICLE

 An Ixodes scapularis protein required for survival of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in tick salivary glands

Bindu Sukumaran1, Sukanya Narasimhan1, John F. Anderson4, Kathleen DePonte2, Nancy Marcantonio2, Manoj N. Krishnan1, Durland Fish3, Sam R. Telford5, Fred S. Kantor2, and Erol Fikrig1

1 Section of Rheumatology and 2 Section of Allergy and Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine, and 3 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520
4 Department of Entomology, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, CT 06504
5 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, North Grafton, MA 01536

CORRESPONDENCE Erol Fikrig: erol.fikrig{at}yale.edu

Anaplasma phagocytophilum is the agent of human anaplasmosis, the second most common tick-borne illness in the United States. This pathogen, which is closely related to obligate intracellular organisms in the genera Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, and Anaplasma, persists in ticks and mammalian hosts; however, the mechanisms for survival in the arthropod are not known. We now show that A. phagocytophilum induces expression of the Ixodes scapularis salp16 gene in the arthropod salivary glands during vector engorgement. RNA interference–mediated silencing of salp16 gene expression interfered with the survival of A. phagocytophilum that entered ticks fed on A. phagocytophilum–infected mice. A. phagocytophilum migrated normally from A. phagocytophilum–infected mice to the gut of engorging salp16-deficient ticks, but up to 90% of the bacteria that entered the ticks were not able to successfully infect I. scapularis salivary glands. These data demonstrate the specific requirement of a pathogen for a tick salivary protein to persist within the arthropod and provide a paradigm for understanding how Rickettsia-like pathogens are maintained within vectors.

Abbreviations used: dsRNA, double-stranded RNA; GST, glutathione S-transferase.


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