title: Nuclease Tudor-SN Is Involved in Tick dsRNA-Mediated RNA Interference and Feeding but Not in Defense against Flaviviral or Anaplasma phagocytophilum Rickettsial Infection.
abstract: Tudor staphylococcal nuclease (Tudor-SN) and Argonaute (Ago) are conserved components of the basic RNA interference (RNAi) machinery with a variety of functions including immune response and gene regulation. The RNAi machinery has been characterized in tick vectors of human and animal diseases but information is not available on the role of Tudor-SN in tick RNAi and other cellular processes. Our hypothesis is that tick Tudor-SN is part of the RNAi machinery and may be involved in innate immune response and other cellular processes. To address this hypothesis, Ixodes scapularis and I. ricinus ticks and/or cell lines were used to annotate and characterize the role of Tudor-SN in dsRNA-mediated RNAi, immune response to infection with the rickettsia Anaplasma phagocytophilum and the flaviviruses TBEV or LGTV and tick feeding. The results showed that Tudor-SN is conserved in ticks and involved in dsRNA-mediated RNAi and tick feeding but not in defense against infection with the examined viral and rickettsial pathogens. The effect of Tudor-SN gene knockdown on tick feeding could be due to down-regulation of genes that are required for protein processing and blood digestion through a mechanism that may involve selective degradation of dsRNAs enriched in G:U pairs that form as a result of adenosine-to-inosine RNA editing. These results demonstrated that Tudor-SN plays a role in tick RNAi pathway and feeding but no strong evidence for a role in innate immune responses to pathogen infection was found.
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain.
authors.forename: Nieves
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ayllón
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain; Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States of America.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Naranjo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, The Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ondrej
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hajdušek
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain.
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Villar
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain; Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ruth C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Galindo
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States of America.
authors.forename: Katherine M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kocan
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain.
authors.forename: Pilar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alberdi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, The Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Radek
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Šíma
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain; Center for Infection and Immunity of Lille (CIIL), INSERM U1019 -CNRS UMR 8204, Université Lille Nord de France, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Lille, France.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cabezas-Cruz
authors.affiliation: The Pirbright Institute, Ash Road, Pirbright, Woking, GU24 0NF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rückert
authors.affiliation: The Pirbright Institute, Ash Road, Pirbright, Woking, GU24 0NF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lesley
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bell-Sakyi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84506, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Mária
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kazimírová
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84505, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Sabína
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Havlíková
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84505, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Klempa
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, The Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kopáček
authors.affiliation: SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain; Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States of America.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de la Fuente
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D041081:Anaplasma phagocytophilum / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D006224:Cricetinae; D005416:Flavivirus / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D018884:Ixodes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology / Q000821:virology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D034622:RNA Interference; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D009687:Nuclear Proteins