Recent Advances in Molecular Genetic Tools for Babesia
1
Department of Disease Control, National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido, Obihiro 080-8555, Japan
2
Department of Global Cooperation, National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido, Obihiro 080-8555, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Present address: Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4467, USA.
Academic Editor: Mohamed Abdallah Mohamed Moustafa
Vet. Sci. 2021, 8(10), 222; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8100222
Received: 8 July 2021
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Revised: 15 September 2021
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Accepted: 2 October 2021
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Published: 8 October 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tick-Borne Pathogens and Symbionts)
Development of in vitro culture and completion of genome sequencing of several Babesia parasites promoted the efforts to establish transfection systems for these parasites to dissect the gene functions. It has been more than a decade since the establishment of first transfection for Babesia bovis, the causative agent of bovine babesiosis. However, the number of genes that were targeted by genetic tools in Babesia parasites is limited. This is partially due to the low efficiencies of these methods. The recent adaptation of CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing of Babesia bovis can accelerate the efforts for dissecting this parasite’s genome and extend the knowledge on biological aspects of erythrocytic and tick stages of Babesia. Additionally, glmS ribozyme as a conditional knockdown system is available that could be used for the characterization of essential genes. The development of high throughput genetic tools is needed to dissect the function of multigene families, targeting several genes in a specific pathway, and finally genome-wide identification of essential genes to find novel drug targets. In this review, we summarized the current tools that are available for Babesia and the genes that are being targeted by these tools. This may draw a perspective for the future development of genetic tools and pave the way for the identification of novel drugs or vaccine targets.
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Keywords:
Babesia; genome; genetic tools
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MDPI and ACS Style
Hakimi, H.; Asada, M.; Kawazu, S.-i. Recent Advances in Molecular Genetic Tools for Babesia. Vet. Sci. 2021, 8, 222. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8100222
AMA Style
Hakimi H, Asada M, Kawazu S-i. Recent Advances in Molecular Genetic Tools for Babesia. Veterinary Sciences. 2021; 8(10):222. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8100222
Chicago/Turabian StyleHakimi, Hassan, Masahito Asada, and Shin-ichiro Kawazu. 2021. "Recent Advances in Molecular Genetic Tools for Babesia" Veterinary Sciences 8, no. 10: 222. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8100222
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