Vaccinomics, the new road to tick vaccines

Abstract

Ticks are a threat to human and animal health worldwide. Ticks are considered to be second worldwide to mosquitoes as vectors of human diseases, the most important vectors of diseases that affect cattle industry worldwide and important vectors of diseases affecting pets. Tick vaccines are a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to protect against tick-borne diseases through the control of vector infestations and reducing pathogen infection and transmission. These premises stress the need for developing improved tick vaccines in a more efficient way. In this context, development of improved vaccines for tick-borne diseases will be greatly enhanced by vaccinomics approaches starting from the study of tick–host–pathogen molecular interactions and ending in the characterization and validation of vaccine formulations. The discovery of new candidate vaccine antigens for the control of tick infestations and pathogen infection and transmission requires the development of effective screening platforms and algorithms that allow the analysis and validation of data produced by systems biology approaches to tick research. Tick vaccines that affect both tick infestations and pathogen transmission could be used to vaccinate human and animal populations at risk and reservoir species to reduce host exposure to ticks while reducing the number of infected ticks and their vectorial capacity for pathogens that affect human and animal health worldwide.