Pitfalls in Tick and Tick-Borne Pathogens Research, Some Recommendations and a Call for Data Sharing

Pathogens

Hein Sprong¹  Aitor Cevidanes²  Agustín Estrada-Peña³  Javier Millán⁴ 

[1] Center for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Mailbox 63, Room V353, Antonie van Leeuwenhoeklaan 9, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands;Department of Animal Health, NEIKER-Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Bizkaia P812, 48160 Derio, Spain;Department of Animal Health. Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. University of Zaragoza, 50013 Zaragoza, Spain;Research Group in Emerging Zoonoses, Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón-IA2 (Universidad de Zaragoza-CITA), 50013 Zaragoza, Spain;

关键词: ticks;    tick-transmitted pathogens;    tick-surveys;    prevalence reporting;    GenBank;    guidelines;   

DOI  :  10.3390/pathogens10060712

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

An understanding of the relationships of ticks and tick-borne pathogens can only be achieved by integrating data from multiple studies. The publication of raw material is a necessary step for wide-area meta-analyses and study design, data collection and reporting require harmonization. This is an opinion paper, not a consensus position, and is open to debate. This work reflects our view about how data should be communicated in mainstream journals. We indicate rules that should be observed in recording weather data, to avoid serendipitous correlations between the density of ticks and climate variables and recommend the inclusion of raw data in reports. We stress the need for standardized methods to collect ticks that cannot be obtained by standard flagging. The reporting of infection rates of pathogens in ticks should avoid conclusions based on pure molecular findings in feeding ticks. Studies demonstrating the vectorial capacity of ticks should not be supported only by molecular surveys of feeding ticks. Vacuous conclusions about vectorial or reservoir status based solely on the finding of genomic material of a pathogen should be discouraged. We stress that phylogenetic studies based on random selection of sequences from GenBank are unsuitable. We firmly support the development of a dedicated server of curated sequences of ticks and pathogens as a standard for future studies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown