Subj : Ticks may be able to spread chronic wast To : All From : ScienceDaily Date : Fri Jul 07 2023 22:30:28 Ticks may be able to spread chronic wasting disease between Wisconsin deer Date: July 7, 2023 Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Summary: A new study finds that ticks can harbor transmissible amounts of the protein particle that causes Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), implicating the parasites as possible agents in the disease's spread between deer in Wisconsin. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email ========================================================================== FULL STORY ========================================================================== A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds that ticks can harbor transmissible amounts of the protein particle that causes Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), implicating the parasites as possible agents in the disease's spread between deer in Wisconsin. Her findings were published in the journal Scientific reports,a Nature journal. CWD is caused by a pathogenic agent called a prion, which can pass from deer- to-deer through contact with things like prion-contaminated soil and infected bodily fluids such as urine, saliva, blood and feces. Prions, which cause disease in animals and in humans, prompt certain proteins to fold abnormally, particularly in the brain, and prevent these proteins from carrying out their normal functions. Over time, the CWD prion can cause severe brain damage and eventually death in deer. A lot of CWD studies focus on the role soil plays in spreading the fatal neurological disease among deer. But Heather Inzalaco, a researcher in the Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, housed in the UW-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, was curious about other potential environmental and behavioral means of transmission. "Deer live these secret lives; we don't see everything that they do," Inzalaco says. She started to consider what sort of things pester deer that could be connected to CWD: Ticks were the perfect parasitic potential culprit to investigate. Ticks have a goal, of course, to feed on their host's blood. Inzalaco began to wonder if ticks that acquire blood from CWD-infected deer could also host the prions and if so, could they contain enough prions to spread the disease. The question became even more intriguing when she discovered that the most common non-aggressive social behavior that deer engage in is allogrooming. "Deer will groom one another to get places that they can't reach on their own through self-grooming," Inzalaco says. "If they're grooming each other and they're doing that to remove ectoparasites [such as ticks], that might be problematic because they're probably eating the ectoparasites." First, she needed to show that ticks can take up and harbor these prions when they feed on CWD-infected blood. She designed an experiment to do just that. "You'd think that it'd be easy to get ticks to take a blood meal, but they are surprisingly fussy in the lab," Inzalaco says. She was able to determine that ticks can not only carry the prions in their blood meal, they can also carry enough of the agent to potentially infect another animal with CWD. After seeing that the phenomenon was possible in the lab, it was time to see what was happening in the wild. Inzalaco partnered with the Department of Natural Resources to study ticks collected from deer that hunters harvested and submitted for CWD testing. Of the 176 deer with ticks she studied, 15 of the deer were also positive for CWD. Inzalaco took the ticks from the infected deer and tested the blood they contained to quantify the amount of prion the ticks harbored. She determined that these engorged, wild ticks did carry transmissible levels of prions -- just like those in the lab -- making them potential mechanical vectors for the disease. "They're just like a little CWD tic-tac that are possibly being eaten by the deer," Inzalaco says. The study did not test whether prion-carrying ticks did cause transmission to other deer. Understanding more about how CWD can spread can help improve the management of the disease. While it isn't practical to treat all wild deer with tick preventatives, Inzalaco believes better land stewardship could help manage tick populations. For instance, having contiguous habitat of native plant communities and properly managing areas to continue a natural fire regime has been shown to limit tick populations, she says, while more fragmented, unbalanced ecosystems riddled with invasive plants may allow ticks to proliferate more readily. Inzalaco says it might be possible to use ticks as a way to screen for CWD in both wild and farmed deer. Current methods of diagnosis or screening involve invasive sample collection from animals or tissue sampling after their death. While testing the ticks from deer may not lead to the same level of accuracy as testing tissue samples, it could still be a useful tool to better understanding where the disease is affecting deer population in the state. Inzalaco also believes her research can help improve the ecosystems that everyone relies on, especially the state's hunters. "We are all inextricably linked to ecosystem function and the biodiversity of those ecosystems," she says. "That is really what drives my desire to learn and do good science on a daily basis. We need to make an effort to preserve our natural heritage so that we can continue living on this planet and not be overtaken by disease and have healthy animals and healthy functioning ecosystems." * RELATED_TOPICS o Plants_&_Animals # Spiders_and_Ticks # Prions # Animals # Wild_Animals o Earth_&_Climate # Ecology # Ecosystems # Rainforests # Exotic_Species * RELATED_TERMS o Prion o Tularemia o Tick o Rocky_Mountain_spotted_fever o Malaria o Virus o Soy_protein o Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy ========================================================================== Print Email Share ========================================================================== ****** 1 ****** ***** 2 ***** **** 3 **** *** 4 *** ** 5 ** Breaking this hour ========================================================================== * Cystic_Fibrosis:_Lasting_Improvement * Artificial_Cells_Demonstrate_That_'Life_... * Advice_to_Limit_High-Fat_Dairy_Foods_Challenged * First_Snapshots_of_Fermion_Pairs * Why_No_Kangaroos_in_Bali;_No_Tigers_in_Australia * New_Route_for_Treating_Cancer:_Chromosomes * Giant_Stone_Artefacts_Found:_Prehistoric_Tools * Astonishing_Secrets_of_Tunicate_Origins * Most_Distant_Active_Supermassive_Black_Hole * Creative_People_Enjoy_Idle_Time_More_Than_Others Trending Topics this week ========================================================================== PLANTS_&_ANIMALS Insects_(including_Butterflies) Bacteria Endangered_Animals EARTH_&_CLIMATE Air_Pollution Environmental_Policy Ice_Ages FOSSILS_&_RUINS Cultures Early_Climate Human_Evolution ========================================================================== Strange & Offbeat ========================================================================== PLANTS_&_ANIMALS Why_There_Are_No_Kangaroos_in_Bali_(and_No_Tigers_in_Australia) Number_Cruncher_Calculates_Whether_Whales_Are_Acting_Weirdly Fossils_Reveal_How_Ancient_Birds_Molted_Their_Feathers_--_Which_Could_Help Explain_Why_Ancestors_of_Modern_Birds_Survived_When_All_the_Other_Dinosaurs Died EARTH_&_CLIMATE Turning_Old_Maps_Into_3D_Digital_Models_of_Lost_Neighborhoods Squash_Bugs_Are_Attracted_to_and_Eat_Each_Other's_Poop_to_Stock_Their Microbiome How_Urea_May_Have_Been_the_Gateway_to_Life FOSSILS_&_RUINS Giant_Stone_Artefacts_Found_on_Rare_Ice_Age_Site_in_Kent,_UK Apex_Predator_of_the_Cambrian_Likely_Sought_Soft_Over_Crunchy_Prey Newly_Discovered_Jurassic_Fossils_in_Texas Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Wisconsin-Madison. Original written by Elise Mahon. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. ========================================================================== Journal Reference: 1. Inzalaco, H.N., Bravo-Risi, F., Morales, R. et al. icks harbor and excrete chronic wasting disease prions. Sci Rep, 2023 DOI: 10.1038/ s41598-023-34308-3 ========================================================================== Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230707153844.htm --- up 1 year, 18 weeks, 4 days, 10 hours, 50 minutes * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3) .