ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2018
Ticks as potential vectors of Mycobacterium leprae: Use of tick cell lines to culture the bacilli and generate transgenic strains.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Silence on the plate: revisiting the enigma ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- A need for null models in understanding disease transmission: the example of Mycobacterium ulcerans (Buruli ulcer disease).FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Reservoirs and transmission routes of leprosy; A systematic review.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Pooled it
- UndetectableOne health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Canonical fact versus hypothesis testing to decipher transmission of non-tuberculous and tuberculous mycobacteria: a comparative review.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Assessment of TB47 as a potential novel therapeutic agent:Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2025Article
- 4,000-year-old Mycobacterium lepromatosis genomes from Chile reveal long establishment of Hansen's disease in the Americas.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Mycobacteriophage-mediated gene transfer enables in vitro drug screening and in vivo tracking ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Leprosy.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2024Review
- Human Skin as an Ex Vivo Model for MaintainingTropical medicine and infectious disease · 2024Article
- Article
- Allele-dependent interaction of LRRK2 and NOD2 in leprosy.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
- Ticks are unlikely to play a role in leprosy transmission in the Comoros (East Africa) as they do not harbourFrontiers in medicine · 2023Article
- Pathogenicity and virulence ofVirulence · 2022Review
- New Cell Lines Derived from Laboratory ColonyInsects · 2022Article
- Modulation of the Response toFrontiers in microbiology · 2022Review
- Leprosy in wild chimpanzees.Nature · 2021Article
- Detection of Mycobacterium leprae DNA in clinical and environmental samples using serological analysis and PCR.Molecular biology reports · 2021Article
- Article
- One Health Approaches to TraceFrontiers in microbiology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
18 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and frequently resulting in irreversible deformities and disabilities. Ticks play an important role in infectious disease transmission due to their low host specificity, worldwide distribution, and the biological ability to support transovarial transmission of a wide spectrum of pathogens, including viruses, bacteria and protozoa. To investigate a possible role for ticks as vectors of leprosy, we assessed transovarial transmission of M. leprae in artificially-fed adult female Amblyomma sculptum ticks, and infection and growth of M. leprae in tick cell lines. Our results revealed M. leprae RNA and antigens persisting in the midgut and present in the ovaries of adult female A. sculptum at least 2 days after oral infection, and present in their progeny (eggs and larvae), which demonstrates the occurrence of transovarial transmission of this pathogen. Infected tick larvae were able to inoculate viable bacilli during blood-feeding on a rabbit. Moreover, following inoculation with M. leprae, the Ixodes scapularis embryo-derived tick cell line IDE8 supported a detectable increase in the number of bacilli for at least 20 days, presenting a doubling time of approximately 12 days. As far as we know, this is the first in vitro cellular system able to promote growth of M. leprae. Finally, we successfully transformed a clinical M. leprae isolate by inserting the reporter plasmid pCHERRY3; transformed bacteria infected and grew in IDE8 cells over a 2-month period. Taken together, our data not only support the hypothesis that ticks may have the potential to act as a reservoir and/or vector of leprosy, but also suggest the feasibility of technological development of tick cell lines as a tool for large-scale production of M. leprae bacteria, as well as describing for the first time a method for their transformation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.