Journal of Infectious Diseases & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Detection of Transcripts and an Infectious Dose of Murine Gammaherpesvirus 68 in Dermacentor reticulatus Ticks

Kudelova M^1*, Janosova M², Vrbova M², Matuskova R¹, Slovak M³ and Belvoncíkova P¹

¹Department of Molecular Pathogenesis of Viruses, Institute of Virology, Biomedical Research Center, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

²Department of Microbiology and Virology, Faculty of Natural Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

³Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

*Corresponding Author:

Marcela Kúdelová
Institute of Virology, Biomedical Research Center
Slovak Academy of Sciences, 845 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Tel: 00421 02 59302434
Fax: 00421 02 54774284
E-mail: virukude@savba.sk

Received date: July 24, 2017; Accepted date: August 09, 2017; Published date: August 14, 2017

Citation: Kudelova M, Janosova M, Vrbova M, Matuskova R, Slovak M, et al. (2017) Detection of Transcripts and an Infectious Dose of Murine Gammaherpesvirus 68 in Dermacentor reticulatus Ticks. J Infect Dis Ther 5:330. doi: 10.4172/2332-0877.1000330

Copyright: © 2017 Kudelova M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Murine gammaherpesvirus 68 is assumed to be a natural pathogen of murid rodents. Previous investigations of MHV68 in field-collected Dermacentor reticulatus, Ixodes ricinus, and Haemaphysalis concinna ticks support the idea that ticks acquire the virus from feeding on infected hosts. Based on our previous finding of a live MHV-68 capable to replicate in mammalian cells, we aimed to investigate if transcripts of MHV-68 are present in D. reticulatus ticks and to determine the amount of MHV-68 in these ticks.

Methods: This study utilized a sensitive nested RT-PCR method to detect transcripts of the early-late M3 gene of MHV-68, then nested PCR to screen MHV-68 presence and real-time PCR to quantify virus infectious dose in ticks.

Results: Transcripts of MHV-68 M3 gene were detected in 10 out of 11 questing ticks. MHV-68 was detected in 38 out of 48 questing ticks, in which an infectious dose of MHV-68 varies from 2.2 × 104–8.6 × 106 copies of the virus genome .

Conclusion: We report the first evidence of MHV-68 transcription and infectious dose of MHV-68 in field collected D. reticulatus ticks. Results provide unique evidence that ticks could act as a reservoir of gammaherpesvirus, which could be capable of replication.

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