Why don't ticks die of Lyme Disease?

[Henriëtte]

Why don't ticks themselves get sick

Now, in an attempt to find an answer, scientists have discovered that ticks fight off invading pathogens in a unique way.
The tick’s immune system, it turns out, works differently from that of other bloodsucking creatures that are notorious for transmitting disease-causing microbes to humans, such as mosquitoes and flies, according to the new findings, which were published Feb. 14 in the journal Nature Communications.

Any given mosquito, for example, can typically transmit only one or two pathogens, Pedra told Live Science. But in addition to the Lyme disease bacteria, deer ticks are capable of transmitting six human pathogens. "So, we thought, there may be something fundamentally different about the tick immune system," Pedra said.
And there are other reasons to suspect that ticks have an immune system that's different from what is found in mosquitoes and other insects: In evolution, ticks parted ways with insects long ago — the two groups are as similar to each other as humans are to fish, Pedra noted. [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

https://www.livescience.com/58005-why-d ... sease.html

Henriëtte

[Henriëtte]

Researchers decoded how ingenious tick immune system fights myriad of microbes;

Scientists had long assumed that the tick immune system works similarly to that of flies and mosquitoes. But ticks, which have existed on the planet for between 120 million and 443 million years, have taken an entirely different path. Dr. Pedra points out that in evolutionary terms, ticks are as far removed from insects, as humans are from fish. "Although the two bugs are seemingly alike, it turns out that the immune system of ticks is quite distinct from insects. Our discovery clarifies the ins-and-outs of how the tick immune system fights bacteria," Dr. Pedra says.

first noticed that ticks were missing crucial genes for a proper immune response. This observation led to the discovery of an entirely new pathway that recognizes three distinct bacteria: the Lyme disease agent, Borrelia burgdorferi, and two others that cause rickettsial illnesses, Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Anaplasma marginale. After identifying components of the immune system, Dr. Shaw was able to block the tick immune response with a molecular technique named RNA interference. She also over-activated the ticks' immune system to get rid of bacteria even more efficiently.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20170 ... robes.aspx

Henriëtte

[Henriëtte]

Ticks amazing immune systems protect them from the disease they carry;

“The notion that immune pathways in ticks diverge from insects may be expected, given their unique lifestyle when compared with other blood-feeding arthropods,” they write. “The diverse pathosphere and relatively long life span of ticks, which can extend over 10 years for some species, suggests that unique evolutionary pressures exist for the development of immune signaling networks to control pathogens and promote prolonged survival.”

The researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine looked at a similar phenomenon in mosquitoes, which are not affected by many of the deadly germs it transmits. But the various mechanisms in mosquitoes were checked in the ticks using RNA interference, and instead found a unique immune signaling cascade that the parasite has developed over millions of years.

https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/new ... they-carry

Henriëtte