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Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania

Received: 3 December 2020     Accepted: 16 December 2020     Published: 28 December 2020
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Abstract

Many of the recent emerging infectious diseases have occurred due to the transmission of the viruses that have wildlife reservoirs. Arthropods, such as ticks, are known to be important vectors for spreading viruses and other pathogens from wildlife to domestic animals and humans. In the present study, we explored the diversity of viruses in hard ticks (Ixodidae) from select areas of a wildlife-livestock interface ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania using a metagenomic approach. cDNA and DNA were amplified with random amplification and Illumina high-throughput sequencing was performed. The high-throughput sequenced data was imported to the CLC genomic workbench and trimmed based on quality (Q = 20) and length (≥ 50). The trimmed reads were assembled and annotated through Blastx using Diamond against the National Center for Biotechnology Information non-redundant database and its viral database. The MEGAN Community was used to analyze and to compare the taxonomy of the viral community. The obtained contigs and singletons were further subjected to alignment and mapping against reference sequences. The viral sequences identified were classified into bacteria, vertebrates, and invertebrates, plants, and protozoans viruses. Sequences related to known viral families; Retroviridae, Flaviviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Chuviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Phenuiviridae, Totiviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Parvoviridae, Caulimoviridae, Mimiviridae and several Phages were reported. This result indicates that there are many viruses present in the study region, which we are not aware of and do not know the role they have or if they have the potential to spread to other species and cause diseases. Therefore, further studies are required to delineate the viral community present in the region over a large scale.

Published in American Journal of BioScience (Volume 8, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12
Page(s) 150-157
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Ticks, Viral Metagenomics, Virus, Mikumi National Park

References
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Donath Damian, Modester Damas, Jonas Johansson Wensman, Mikael Berg. (2020). Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. American Journal of BioScience, 8(6), 150-157. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12

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    ACS Style

    Donath Damian; Modester Damas; Jonas Johansson Wensman; Mikael Berg. Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. Am. J. BioScience 2020, 8(6), 150-157. doi: 10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12

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    AMA Style

    Donath Damian, Modester Damas, Jonas Johansson Wensman, Mikael Berg. Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. Am J BioScience. 2020;8(6):150-157. doi: 10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12,
      author = {Donath Damian and Modester Damas and Jonas Johansson Wensman and Mikael Berg},
      title = {Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania},
      journal = {American Journal of BioScience},
      volume = {8},
      number = {6},
      pages = {150-157},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajbio.20200806.12},
      abstract = {Many of the recent emerging infectious diseases have occurred due to the transmission of the viruses that have wildlife reservoirs. Arthropods, such as ticks, are known to be important vectors for spreading viruses and other pathogens from wildlife to domestic animals and humans. In the present study, we explored the diversity of viruses in hard ticks (Ixodidae) from select areas of a wildlife-livestock interface ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania using a metagenomic approach. cDNA and DNA were amplified with random amplification and Illumina high-throughput sequencing was performed. The high-throughput sequenced data was imported to the CLC genomic workbench and trimmed based on quality (Q = 20) and length (≥ 50). The trimmed reads were assembled and annotated through Blastx using Diamond against the National Center for Biotechnology Information non-redundant database and its viral database. The MEGAN Community was used to analyze and to compare the taxonomy of the viral community. The obtained contigs and singletons were further subjected to alignment and mapping against reference sequences. The viral sequences identified were classified into bacteria, vertebrates, and invertebrates, plants, and protozoans viruses. Sequences related to known viral families; Retroviridae, Flaviviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Chuviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Phenuiviridae, Totiviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Parvoviridae, Caulimoviridae, Mimiviridae and several Phages were reported. This result indicates that there are many viruses present in the study region, which we are not aware of and do not know the role they have or if they have the potential to spread to other species and cause diseases. Therefore, further studies are required to delineate the viral community present in the region over a large scale.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Diversity of Viruses in Hard Ticks (Ixodidae) from Select Areas of a Wildlife-livestock Interface Ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania
    AU  - Donath Damian
    AU  - Modester Damas
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12
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    JF  - American Journal of BioScience
    JO  - American Journal of BioScience
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    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajbio.20200806.12
    AB  - Many of the recent emerging infectious diseases have occurred due to the transmission of the viruses that have wildlife reservoirs. Arthropods, such as ticks, are known to be important vectors for spreading viruses and other pathogens from wildlife to domestic animals and humans. In the present study, we explored the diversity of viruses in hard ticks (Ixodidae) from select areas of a wildlife-livestock interface ecosystem at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania using a metagenomic approach. cDNA and DNA were amplified with random amplification and Illumina high-throughput sequencing was performed. The high-throughput sequenced data was imported to the CLC genomic workbench and trimmed based on quality (Q = 20) and length (≥ 50). The trimmed reads were assembled and annotated through Blastx using Diamond against the National Center for Biotechnology Information non-redundant database and its viral database. The MEGAN Community was used to analyze and to compare the taxonomy of the viral community. The obtained contigs and singletons were further subjected to alignment and mapping against reference sequences. The viral sequences identified were classified into bacteria, vertebrates, and invertebrates, plants, and protozoans viruses. Sequences related to known viral families; Retroviridae, Flaviviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Chuviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Phenuiviridae, Totiviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Parvoviridae, Caulimoviridae, Mimiviridae and several Phages were reported. This result indicates that there are many viruses present in the study region, which we are not aware of and do not know the role they have or if they have the potential to spread to other species and cause diseases. Therefore, further studies are required to delineate the viral community present in the region over a large scale.
    VL  - 8
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    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

  • Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

  • Section of Ruminant Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

  • Section of Virology, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

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