Ticks and Tick-Borne Infections: Complex Ecology, Agents, and Host Interactions
Department of Medical Sciences, Frank H. Netter, M.D., School of Medicine, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT 06518, USA
Vet. Sci. 2018, 5(2), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci5020060
Received: 16 May 2018 / Revised: 11 June 2018 / Accepted: 15 June 2018 / Published: 20 June 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of the Environment in the Spread and Maintenance of Zoonotic Pathogens)
Ticks transmit the most diverse array of infectious agents of any arthropod vector. Both ticks and the microbes they transmit are recognized as significant threats to human and veterinary public health. This article examines the potential impacts of climate change on the distribution of ticks and the infections they transmit; the emergence of novel tick-borne pathogens, increasing geographic range and incidence of tick-borne infections; and advances in the characterization of tick saliva mediated modulation of host defenses and the implications of those interactions for transmission, establishment, and control of tick infestation and tick-borne infectious agents.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
ticks; tick-borne diseases; emerging and resurging pathogens; zoonoses; vector ecology; climate change; tick saliva; tick-host-pathogen interactions; host immune defenses; immunomodulation
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Wikel, S.K. Ticks and Tick-Borne Infections: Complex Ecology, Agents, and Host Interactions. Vet. Sci. 2018, 5, 60.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
