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

扁虱是一种食血节肢动物，除了对宿主造成直接损害外，还会传播牲畜、同伴动物和人类的许多疾病。这些疾病是由病毒、细菌、原虫和丝虫引起的。虽然壁虱和壁虱传播疾病在世界各地都有发生，但它们造成的经济负担主要落在热带和亚热带的最不发达国家和中低收入国家身上。造成损失的原因是防治扁虱和结核病的直接成本(杀螨剂、抗生素和抗寄生虫治疗、疫苗，如果存在)，以及生产力下降、死亡率下降和应用控制措施所花费的时间和人力的间接成本。扁虱对现有杀螨剂产生抗药性是世界范围内一个日益严重的问题，大型制药公司不愿投资于LMIC畜牧业的新化学扁虱控制方法。为了减轻LMIC的小农和畜主的经济负担，迫切需要新的杀螨剂和/或替代的扁虱防治制度，以及负担得起的有效疫苗和/或治疗结核病的药物治疗。使用细胞培养系统来研究扁虱细胞如何发挥作用以及它们如何传播致病病原体以及为什么传播致病病原体，极大地有助于这些疾病的预防和治疗研究。这种被称为细胞系的培养系统已经为许多携带疾病的扁虱开发出来，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。壁虱细胞系是研究影响LMIC的壁虱相关问题的日益重要的研究工具；由于它们相对便宜且易于培养，它们使许多缺乏以大型动物饲养壁虱的基础设施的实验室能够开展壁虱和待定疾病研究的许多方面。七年前，英国为现在和未来所有可用的扁虱细胞系创建了一个中央储存库，扁虱细胞生物库。Tick Cell Biobank应研究科学家的要求分发Tick细胞系，并提供基本的维护培训。目前，LMIC研究人员很难获得和维护现有的TICK细胞系来支持他们的TICK和TBD研究，因为这些细胞必须从英国进口，而且当地没有培训。为了解决这一问题并改善LMIC获得TICK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TICK细胞生物库的区域前哨。这些前哨基地将设在已有扁虱和/或待定病毒相关研究方案的研究所，与经验丰富的当地科学家合作，并将提供针对区域量身定做的扁虱细胞系组合，并对其维护进行培训。我们还将通过分享所需技术的专业知识，鼓励建立来自本土硬虱物种的新细胞系。我们预计，滴答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挖掘TCL的潜力。从长远来看，这将建立和扩大当地的TICK和TBD研究能力，为当地和地区性问题带来更多和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.