This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Lone star tick found not to contain Lyme disease agent
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Researchers have found that lone star ticks are not vectors of the Lyme disease agent, according to recently published study results.
Ellen Stromdahl, BCE, an entomologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Center, and colleagues conducted a review of 54 studies from at least 35 different research groups on 52,000 Ambyomma americanum ticks, otherwise known as lone star ticks, for Borrelia burgdorferi vectors that had been published during three decades dating back to 1983. Borrelia burgdorferi is the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
"I knew that dozens of investigations of lone star ticks for the Lyme bacteria had been published more recently, in the last 15 years, but perhaps they were being overlooked because the focus of these studies was the bacteria once thought responsible for causing Southern Tick Associated Rash Illness (STARI), Borrelia lonestari,” Stromdahl said in a press release.
Lone star tick bites can cause a range of illnesses, including ehrlichiosis, STARI and red meat allergy.
“Early studies suggested the presence of B. burgdorferi in A. americanum ticks in the United States,” the researchers wrote. “However, in almost all cases, Borreliae were detected using methods that were not Borrelia species-specific, spirochetes that were detected were likely other species, or transient infections detected in engorged ticks collected from hosts infected with B. burgdorferi transmitted by other sympatric vector-competent species. More recently, extensive surveillance, using methods that discriminate among Borrelia species, has only rarely detected B. burgdorferi in A. amercanum ticks, and most of these observations could have resulted from the presence of B. burgdorferi DNA that was most likely from an infectious host bloodmeal.”
There was no demonstration of vector competency of A. americanum for B. burgdorferi in experimental infections using a diverse array of B. burgdorferi strains.
“Although advancements in molecular analysis strongly suggest that initial reports of B. burgdorferi in A. americanum across many states were in fact misidentified B. lonestari or DNA contamination, early reports continue to be cited without mention of the later clarifying studies,” the researchers concluded. “We suggest that the few studies implicating A. americanum as a vector of B. burgdorferi have not yet met the burden of proof for their assumption.”
"The media coverage of Lyme disease might make many Americans think that a tick bite means only one thing: Lyme disease," Robyn Nadolny, PhD, biologist and program coordinator at the U.S. Army Public Health Center Tick-Borne Disease Laboratory, added in the release. "We aim to raise awareness of ehrlichiosis and the other problems caused by lone star ticks so that the real threat from these ticks does not go unrecognized.” – Bruce Thiel
Disclosures: Infectious Diseases in Children was unable to determine the authors’ relevant financial disclosures at time of publication.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts