Tick vaccines: current status and future directions

Abstract

Ticks and tick-borne diseases are a growing problem affecting human and animal health worldwide. Traditional control methods, based primarily on chemical acaricides, have proven not to be sustainable because of the selection of acaricide-resistant ticks. Tick vaccines appear to be a promising and effective alternative for control of tick infestations and pathogen transmission. The purpose of this review is to summarize previous tick vaccine development and performance and formulate critical issues and recommendations for future directions for the development of improved and effective tick vaccines. The development of effective screening platforms and algorithms using omics approaches focused on relevant biological processes will allow the discovery of new tick-protective antigens. Future vaccines will likely combine tick antigens with different protective mechanisms alone or pathogen-derived antigens. The application of tick vaccines as a part of integrated control strategies will ultimately result in the control of tick-borne diseases.

Keywords:

• acaricide
• control
• tick
• vaccine
• vaccinomics

Acknowledgements

We thank members of our laboratories for fruitful discussions.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The preparation of this chapter was partially supported by the EU FP7 ANTIGONE project number 278976. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Key issues

• Ticks are obligate hematophagous arthropod ectoparasites that vector pathogens causing diseases in humans and animals.

• TBD are an increasing problem affecting human and animal health worldwide.

• Ticks are difficult to control and traditional control methods based primarily on chemical acaricides have been only partially successful.

• Tick vaccines appear to be a promising and sustainable approach for the control of tick infestations and pathogen transmission.

• Effective screening platforms and algorithms will be required for discovery of new tick protective antigens.

• Vaccinomics and reverse vaccinology approaches will be used to identify and fully characterize candidate protective antigens and validate vaccine formulations.

• Focusing on abundant proteins with relevant biological function will most likely identify new candidate tick-protective antigens.

• New tick vaccines will likely combine tick antigens with different protective mechanisms alone or pathogen-derived antigens.

• Integrated tick control strategies combining tick vaccines with other control methods should be developed.

• The application of tick vaccines will ultimately result in reducing tick infestations while affecting pathogen infection and transmission to control TBD.