Abstract
Many antigens such as BM86, BM91, BM95, Serpins, Haa86, Subolesin, etc. have been used as vaccines against ticks. Recently, voraxin-α has been reported as a candidate for the anti-tick vaccine. Structure, characterization and molecular cloning of voraxin-α from Amblyomma hebraeum, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus and Rhipicephalus microplus were reported. No information has been reported about voraxin-α gene from the Hyalomma anatolicum. Therefore, this study isolated, sequenced, and analyzed the structure and properties of the H. anatolicum voraxin-α by in silico methods. To determine whether voraxin-α gene are expressed in the H. anatolicum, total RNA was extracted and cDNA synthesized. RT-PCR analysis confirmed that male voraxin-α was localized in the testis of the H. anatolicum. The voraxin-α appeared as a single band (470-bp) on 2% (w/v) agarose gels. The coding sequence (CDS) of voraxin-α gene in the H. anatolicum consist of a 462-base pair fragment encoding a 153-amino acid. In silico analysis of the H. anatolicum voraxin-α showed that the nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequence had high similarity (95.6%) with voraxin-α of the R. appendiculatus. Moreover, results confirmed that the observed differences between the 3D structure and physicochemical properties of voraxin-α from the ticks H. anatolicum or R. appendiculatus were small. Due to the similarity of the two sequences, it may be possible to use this voraxin-α as an antigen to produce an anti-tick vaccine in the H. anatolicum. However, in vivo studies are necessary to determine the antigenicity of the voraxin-α gene as a possible vaccine target in the tick H. anatolicum.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Research deputy of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan for all support. Also, we thank Dr. Fatemeh Salabi and Dr. Hedieh Jafari from Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute (Ahvaz-Iran) for her help in ticks sampling and identification.
Funding
This article was extracted from a Master's thesis in Department of Animal Science entitled " Isolation, Cloning and Characterization of Hyalomma anatolicum voraxin-α ". This research was financially supported by the Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran [9732306–2019].
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MN and SH contributed equally to this work. SH carried out experiments in farm and lab with helping MN while MN and JF conducted the bioinformatic analyses and sequence analysis. All authors contributed to data interpretation. The manuscript was drafted by SH, MN carefully revised by HR and JF. The final version of the manuscript was approved by all authors.
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Nazari, M., Hezarian, S., Roshanfekr, H. et al. Isolation, sequencing, and in silico analysis of a novel voraxin-α gene from Hyalomma anatolicum ticks. Int J Trop Insect Sci 42, 2867–2876 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-022-00811-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-022-00811-9