Does the vaccine prevent Lyme disease? It’s a flexible preparation

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   Ticks are carriers of many diseases that are dangerous to humans
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   One of them is Lyme disease
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   Research suggests we may soon receive a tick-borne vaccine
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   More information can be found on Onet homepage

Vaccine attacks ticks

in the United States Borrelia disease It is the most common infection transmitted from animals to humans. Each year, deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) carry the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi there for up to half a million people. Lyme disease causes similar symptoms fluThe characteristic rash can also affect the brain, nerves, heart, and joints, sometimes resulting in permanent nerve damage and arthritis. Antibiotics They may be effective in the early stages, but an increasing number of people – one estimate – at least 1.6 million in 2020 – are suffering from the chronic consequences of infection. There is no human vaccine currently available, although there is one in clinical trials.

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a. Errol Vikrig of Yale School of Medicine has worked for 10 years on a new vaccine that does not target the pathogen — but rather the tick that carries it. However, in June 2019, at a meeting in Killarney, Ireland, he heard immunologist Drew Wiseman of the University of Pennsylvania describe a technology unknown at the time: a vaccine that uses messenger RNA (mRNA). a. Vikrig, he recalls, immediately sensed the potential of the new technology.

Previous vaccines were intended to target B. ticks’ saliva containing factors that help spread the pathogen, but these proteins are “difficult to make in the lab,” says Vikrig, quoted on science.org. “The beauty of the mRNA vaccine is that … you don’t have to make the protein – the body does it for you.”

The rest of the text is below the video.

Preparation of mRNA for ticks

Thanks to his team’s work, a vaccine has been created that contains 19 separate mRNA fragments. Each of them encodes a protein or antigen from deer tick saliva (for comparison mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 provides only one antigen).

“The mRNA vaccine has definitely saved us from COVID-19“says Jorge Benach, a microbiologist at Stony Brook University who co-discovered Borrelia burgdorferi.” right Now [Fikrig] Uses amazing technology… with more than one antigen at a time. (…) I think it will be very useful for vaccines in the future.

This is the first vaccine [przeznaczona dla ludzi] against an infectious disease that does not target the pathogen “- noted Professor Vikrig.

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What happens to this vaccine?

So far, an mRNA vaccine given to guinea pigs has turned the tick’s ticks red and caused inflammation. The ticks ate malnutrition, fell early, and often did not transmit the bacteria that caused Lyme disease. Scientists hope that one day the vaccine will work the same way for humans. It is possible that the same mechanism of action may find application in many tick-borne diseases.

For many people, tick bites go unnoticed, which allows these arthropods to feed without interruption. The new vaccine, with multiple mRNA fragments that direct host cells to manufacture important proteins in tick saliva, prepared the guinea pig’s immune system to respond to tick bites. By 18 hours after the tick is laid, most bites have turned red, inflamed, and (possibly) itchy.

This is important because B. burgdorferi is rarely transmitted from ticks to hosts before 36 hours (ticks often remain attached for four days or more). When the scientists removed the tick soon after inflammation appeared at the site of the sting (as a human sting can do), transmission of B. burgdorferi bacteria was prevented.

However, a lot of protection will likely depend on whether people detect an itchy red tick bite and are able to remove it early. When three infected ticks were attached to guinea pigs and kept on them until they were 60% saturated. The vaccinated animals became infected (almost as in the control group). It is not yet known if vaccinated people will respond similarly to guinea pigs. (PAP)

Author: Pawe Wernicki

What attracts ticks? [INFOGRAFIKA]

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   Did you catch a tick? You don’t do these things at all!
2. 
   What are the tests for Lyme disease?
3. 
   A ‘missing piece’ of Lyme disease has been found. When is the vaccine?

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