Adaptation of ticks to a blood-feeding environment: evolution from a functional perspective

Abstract

Ticks had to adapt to an existing and complex vertebrate hemostatic system from being free-living scavengers. A large array of anti-hemostatic mechanisms evolved during this process and includes blood coagulation as well as platelet aggregation inhibitors. Several questions regarding tick evolution exist. What was the nature of the ancestral tick? When did ticks evolve blood-feeding capabilities? How did these capabilities evolve? Did host specificity influence the adaptation of ticks to a blood-feeding environment? What are the implications of tick evolution for future research into tick biology and vaccine development? We investigate these questions in the light of recent research into protein superfamilies from tick saliva. Our conclusions are that the main tick families adapted independently to a blood-feeding environment. This is supported by major differences observed in all processes involved with blood-feeding for hard and soft ticks. Gene duplication events played a major role in the evolution of novel protein functions involved in tick-host interactions. This occurred during the late Cretaceous and was stimulated by the radiation of birds and placental mammals, which provided numerous new niches for ticks to adapt to a new lifestyle. Independent adaptation of the main tick families to a blood-feeding environment has several implications for future tick research in terms of tick genome projects and vaccine development.