Rhipicephalus microplus

Rhipicephalus microplus

Rhipicephalus microplus
Southern cattle tick
Taxonomic classification
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Ixodida
Family:	Ixodidae
Genus:	Rhipicephalus
NCBI taxid:	6941
EOL taxid:	515050
Databases
Database:	ArthropodDB
Information
Nomination:	i5K initiative
Date:	2011/04/05

i5K Arthropod Sequencing Initiative  Supported by: 0 ()

White Paper information

The cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, causes annual economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars to cattle producers throughout the world, and ranks as the most economically important tick from a global perspective. Control failures attributable to the development of pesticide resistance have become commonplace and novel control technologies are needed. The availability of the genome sequence will facilitate the development of these new technologies. In Australia, the tick has acquired resistance to pyrethroid, organophosphate and amitraz acaricides, resulting in reported annual losses of $100 million per year attributable to B. microplus (Angus, 1996). Brazil has a cattle population of approximately 170 million. Producers of that country incur direct and indirect losses of over $2 billion attributable to ticks and tick control expenditures. China has approximately 140 million cattle and the country ranks as having the third largest cattle population in the world.

Several existing biological resources are available to facilitate a genome sequencing project, including several inbred laboratory tick strains, a database of approximately 45,000 ESTs compiled into a B. microplus Gene Index, a 3X BAC library, an established B. microplus cell line, and genomic DNA suitable for library synthesis. Collaborative projects are underway to map BACs and cDNAs to specific chromosomes and to sequence selected BAC clones. We also have recently used reassociation kinetics-based methods to fractionate the genomic DNA into repetitive and gene-enriched fractions. Several 454 pyrosequencing runs have been performed on the gene-enriched fractions and are being assembled.

When completed, the genome sequences from the cow, B. microplus and the B. microplus-borne pathogens, Babesia bovis and Anaplasma marginale, will enhance studies of host-vector-pathogen systems. Genes involved in the regeneration of amputated tick limbs and transitions through developmental stages are largely unknown. Studies of these and other interesting biological questions will be advanced by tick genome sequence data. Comparative genomics offers the prospect of new insight into many, perhaps all, aspects of the biology of ticks and the pathogens they transmit to farm animals and people. The B. microplus genome sequence will fill a major gap in comparative genomics: a sequence from the Metastriata lineage of ticks. The genome of the deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, has been recently sequenced and is available for comparative studies. --Drdadmou 17:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)