Ticks transmit a wide variety of pathogens including bacteria, parasites and viruses. Over the last decade, numerous novel viruses have been described in arthropods, including ticks, and their characterization has provided new insights into RNA virus diversity and evolution. However, little is known about their ability to infect vertebrates. As very few studies have described the diversity of viruses present in ticks from the Caribbean, we implemented an RNA-sequencing approach on Amblyomma variegatum and Rhipicephalus microplus ticks collected from cattle in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Among the viral communities infecting Caribbean ticks, we selected four viruses belonging to the Chuviridae, Phenuiviridae and Flaviviridae families for further characterization and designing antibody screening tests. While viral prevalence in individual tick samples revealed high infection rates, suggesting a high level of exposure of Caribbean cattle to these viruses, no seropositive animals were detected. These results suggest that the Chuviridae- and Phenuiviridae-related viruses identified in the present study are more likely tick endosymbionts, raising the question of the epidemiological significance of their occurrence in ticks, especially regarding their possible impact on tick biology and vector capacity. The characterization of these viruses might open the door to new ways of preventing and controlling tick-borne diseases.

中文翻译：

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法属安的列斯群岛 Amblyomma variegatum 和 Rhipicephalus microplus 的 RNA 病毒以及牛的易感性。


蜱传播多种病原体，包括细菌、寄生虫和病毒。在过去的十年中，在包括蜱在内的节肢动物中描述了许多新型病毒，它们的特征为 RNA 病毒多样性和进化提供了新的见解。然而，人们对它们感染脊椎动物的能力知之甚少。由于很少有研究描述加勒比地区蜱中存在的病毒多样性，因此我们对从瓜德罗普岛和马提尼克岛的牛身上收集的 Amblyomma variegatum 和 Rhipicephalus microplus 蜱实施了 RNA 测序方法。在感染加勒比蜱的病毒群落中，我们选择了属于 Chuviridae、Phenuiviridae 和 Flaviviridae 家族的四种病毒，用于进一步表征和设计抗体筛选测试。虽然个体蜱样本中的病毒流行率显示出较高的感染率，表明加勒比牛对这些病毒的暴露程度较高，但没有检测到血清反应呈阳性的动物。这些结果表明，本研究中鉴定的 Chuviridae 和 Phenuiviridae 相关病毒更可能是蜱内共生体，引发了它们在蜱中出现的流行病学意义的问题，特别是它们对蜱生物学和媒介能力的可能影响。这些病毒的特征可能为预防和控制蜱传疾病的新方法打开大门。