GCRF-BBR: The Tick Cell Biobank: outposts in Asia, Africa and South America

蜱是吸血的节肢动物，除了对宿主造成直接损害外，还传播牲畜、伴侣动物和人类的许多疾病。这些疾病由病毒、细菌、原生动物和蠕虫引起。虽然蜱和蜱传疾病（TBD）在世界范围内发生，但它们对热带和亚热带地区的最不发达国家和中低收入国家（LMIC）造成的经济负担不成比例。损失来自控制蜱虫和TBD的直接费用（杀螨剂、抗生素和抗寄生虫治疗、现有疫苗）以及生产力降低、死亡率降低以及采取控制措施所花费的时间和人力的间接费用。蜱虫对现有杀螨剂的抗药性发展是全球范围内日益严重的问题，主要制药公司不愿意投资于LMIC畜牧业的新化学蜱虫控制方法。为了减轻LMIC地区小农和牲畜所有者的经济负担，迫切需要新的杀螨剂和/或替代蜱虫控制方案，以及负担得起且有效的TBD疫苗和/或药物治疗。使用细胞培养系统研究蜱细胞的功能以及它们如何传播致病病原体以及为何传播致病病原体，极大地有助于预防和治疗这些疾病的研究。这种培养系统称为细胞系，已经为许多携带疾病的蜱开发了，但它们需要特殊的技能以及大量的时间和耐心来建立和维护。蜱细胞系是研究影响LMIC的蜱相关问题的越来越重要的研究工具;由于它们相对便宜且易于生长，它们使许多缺乏大型动物饲养蜱的基础设施的实验室能够进行蜱和TBD研究的许多方面。七年前，一个中央储存库，蜱细胞生物库，在英国创建了所有现在和未来可用的蜱细胞系。蜱细胞生物库根据要求向研究科学家分发蜱细胞系，并提供维持这些细胞系的必要培训。目前，LMIC研究人员很难获得和维持现有的蜱细胞系以支持他们的蜱和TBD研究，因为细胞必须从英国进口，而且当地培训不可用。为了解决这个问题，并改善LMIC获得蜱细胞系和相关专业知识的机会，我们将在马来西亚，肯尼亚和巴西建立蜱细胞生物库的区域前哨。这些前哨站将设在现有蜱虫和/或TBD相关研究计划的研究所，与经验丰富的当地科学家合作，并将提供区域定制的蜱虫细胞系组合，并提供维护培训。我们还将通过分享所需技术的专业知识，鼓励从本土蜱虫物种中建立新的细胞系。我们预计，蜱细胞生物库前哨将使这些国家和邻国的科学家能够在他们的研究中充分利用TCL的潜力。从长远来看，这将建立和扩大当地蜱虫和TBD研究的能力，从而为当地和区域问题提供更多更好的本地解决方案。

Ticks are bloodfeeding arthropods which, as well as causing direct damage to their hosts, transmit many diseases of livestock, companion animals and humans. These diseases are caused by viruses, bacteria, protozoa and filarial worms. While ticks and tick-borne diseases (TBD) occur worldwide, the economic burden they impose falls disproportionately on least-developed and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC) in the tropics and sub-tropics. Losses are incurred through direct costs of tick and TBD control (acaricides, antibiotic and antiparasitic treatment, vaccines where these exist) and indirect costs of reduced productivity, mortality and time and manpower expended on applying control measures. Development of resistance by ticks to existing acaricides is an increasing problem worldwide, and major pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to invest in new chemical tick control approaches for the livestock sector in LMIC. To reduce the economic burden on smallholder farmers and livestock owners in LMIC, new acaricides and/or alternative tick control regimes, and affordable and effective vaccines and/or drug treatments for TBD, are urgently needed.Research into prevention and cure of these diseases is greatly assisted by the use of cell culture systems to study both how tick cells function, and how and why they transmit disease-causing pathogens. Such culture systems, called cell lines, have been developed for many disease-carrying ticks, but they require special skills and much time and patience to establish and maintain. Tick cell lines are increasingly important research tools for study of tick-associated problems affecting LMIC; since they are relatively cheap and easy to grow, they enable many laboratories that lack infrastructure for feeding ticks on large animals to carry out many aspects of tick and TBD research. Seven years ago a central repository, the Tick Cell Biobank, was created in the UK for all the tick cell lines available now and in future. The Tick Cell Biobank distributes tick cell lines on request to research scientists and provides essential training in their maintenance. Currently it is difficult and expensive for LMIC researchers to obtain and maintain existing tick cell lines to support their tick and TBD research, as the cells must be imported from the UK and local training is unavailable. To address this issue and improve LMIC access to tick cell lines and associated expertise, we will establish regional outposts of the Tick Cell Biobank in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil. The outposts will be sited at institutes with existing tick and/or TBD-related research programmes, in collaboration with experiences local scientists, and will offer a regionally-tailored portfolio of tick cell lines with training in their maintenance. We will also encourage establishment of novel cell lines from indigenous tick species by sharing expertise in the required techniques. We anticipate that the Tick Cell Biobank outposts will enable scientists in these and neighbouring countries to fully exploit the potential of TCL in their research. In the long term, this will build and expand local capacity for tick and TBD research, leading to more and better locally generated solutions for local and regional problems.