Next-generation massive sequencing and the bacterial profile of ticks from wild and domestic animals and blood of humans in the chihuahuan desert

Abstract

Ticks are a type of arthropod belonging to the Ixodoidea suborder, which parasitize domestic and wild animals for food. During the pathogenesis process, they transmit many bacterial diseases in parasitized vertebrates, some of which are zoonotic, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever caused by Rickettsia rickettsii, different types of Ehrlichiosis, granulocytic anaplasmosis, Q fever, Lyme disease, among others. In the context of public health, both globally and particularly in northern Mexico, there is well-founded concern due to the increase in the population of stray dogs, which increases the number of vectors of these diseases that affect animal hosts, as well as the population that resides near these animals. Likewise, this type of vector also affects various important wild species in the region under analysis, functioning as reservoirs of tick-borne pathogens (TBP) that can spread to urban areas, and can also affect the health of threatened species as in the case of the Mapimí Bolson tortoise (Gopherus flavomarginatus). The purpose of the following study is to analyze by means of next-generation sequencing (NGS) the bacterial communities in the blood of people who were exposed to tick bites and compare it with people not exposed to this factor, as well as to analyze the bacterial profile of two species of ticks of the family Ixodidae and Agarasidae of importance in public, ecological and veterinary health in the Comarca Lagunera region and the Chihuahuan desert.