The Tick Cell Biobank - a UK and international biological resource

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Ticks are bloodfeeding arthropods which, as well as causing direct damage to their hosts, transmit many diseases of livestock, companion animals and humans. Research into prevention and cure of these diseases, caused by viruses, bacteria, protozoa and filarial worms, 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. Seven years ago a central collection, the Tick Cell Biobank (TCB), was created for all the tick cell lines available now and in future. The TCB distributes tick cell lines (TCL) on request to research scientists all over the world and provides essential training in their maintenance. The TCB also carries out characterisation studies on TCL, as very little is known about most of them, and is creating new cell lines from species of ticks not already represented in the collection. This proposal requests funding to secure the long-term future of the TCB as an essential resource underpinning UK and international tick and tick-borne disease research, to expand the resource to include cell lines derived from other important arthropods such as biting midges, mites and honeybees, and to give added value to the cell lines through characterisation, cloning and genome sequencing, thereby ensuring that these unique and invaluable biological resources continue to be available to the scientists who need to use them in biomedical, veterinary and agricultural research. Since the TCB was established in 2009, the crucial role played by TCL in research into ticks and the diseases they transmit has become increasingly clear. Indeed, interest in TCL and the methods used to generate them has spread to encompass pathogens transmitted by other arthropods such as mites, fleas and lice. With environmental and climate change driving the emergence of new vector-borne diseases, the demand for cell lines derived from ticks and other arthropods is likely to continue to increase in the future. This proposal includes generation of novel cell lines from ticks, mites and insects such as sand flies and midges both in-house and through dissemination of the required expertise to scientists in laboratories specialising in these arthropods. Establishment of TCL takes many years and requires specialised expertise, much patience and, importantly, a stable background of laboratory support. The TCB has brought together almost all the TCL available worldwide into a single repository and point of contact for supply of TCL and training in their maintenance (essential for successful transfer of TCL to recipient laboratories). The TCB has been enormously successful over the past 7 years, generating 18 new TCL, supplying TCL to 71 recipient laboratories and training 80 young scientists representing 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. This proposal includes a workpackage specifically aimed at raising the profile of, and improving access to, TCL and training in lower and middle-income countries, by establishing outposts of the TCB in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil.TCL from the TCB have already facilitated a wide range of studies, but much remains to be done. UK and global research has only scratched the surface of knowledge of these economically important and biologically fascinating parasites, their microbiota and the pathogens they transmit. Continued maintenance and expansion of the unique resource represented by the TCB, including genomic and molecular characterisation of TCL and generation of new arthropod cell lines, is essential to support this research now and for many years to come.