3 ms·

This is, like so many other stories, another glycobiology story in disguise! I had a great discussion with one of our collaborators about where we thought the a

by hirenj 6y ago

This is, like so many other stories, another glycobiology story in disguise! I had a great discussion with one of our collaborators about where we thought the alpha-Gal came from that is so antigenic. Our rough hypothesis was that this is a microbiome related problem, and there’s now some kind of bacteria (or something else!) resident to ticks that produces this sugar. My bet is that the little beastie that produces this epitope has adapted to produce alpha-Gal to avoid detection by the immune system in other mammalian hosts. The tick is simply a delivery mechanism for the alpha-gal producing organism. Here’s the thing though - I don’t quite get why we don’t know what is going on yet. We (probably) have genomes for the ticks, and we can guess (sort of ok) what sugars they can make. We can also do microbiomes to figure out which possible beasties are found in the saliva. I must be missing something big so as to explain why we’re not much closer to answers?

newdude116 6y ago
"We can also do microbiomes to figure out which possible beasties are found in the saliva. " Good luck with that.
- hirenj 6y ago
  Ha, yes okay maybe just from their secretions may be a tad optimistic. However, there are some papers out there about the associated microbiota, although I have no idea if they just mushed the whole tick up to get enough material.
  - newdude116 6y ago
    To give you an idea: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279316/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279316/ "We are grossly ignorant of bacterial life on earth. Environmental microbiologists estimate that less than 2% of bacteria can be cultured in the laboratory. "
- centimeter 6y ago
  In the last 2-3 years, several sequencing labs have popped up that specialize in separating pathogen DNA from host DNA. Presumably someone like the UCSF next-gen diagnostics lab could grind up a bunch of ticks and isolate the different DNA sources. They've done similar things with other animal pathogens.
  - newdude116 6y ago
    Not sure that it is so easy. May be easier to go mRNA fishing. Diversa did this. I think now part of BASF.

by hirenj 6y ago

newdude116 6y ago

"We can also do microbiomes to figure out which possible beasties are found in the saliva. " Good luck with that.

hirenj 6y ago
Ha, yes okay maybe just from their secretions may be a tad optimistic. However, there are some papers out there about the associated microbiota, although I have no idea if they just mushed the whole tick up to get enough material.
- newdude116 6y ago
  To give you an idea: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279316/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279316/ "We are grossly ignorant of bacterial life on earth. Environmental microbiologists estimate that less than 2% of bacteria can be cultured in the laboratory. "
centimeter 6y ago
In the last 2-3 years, several sequencing labs have popped up that specialize in separating pathogen DNA from host DNA. Presumably someone like the UCSF next-gen diagnostics lab could grind up a bunch of ticks and isolate the different DNA sources. They've done similar things with other animal pathogens.
- newdude116 6y ago
  Not sure that it is so easy. May be easier to go mRNA fishing. Diversa did this. I think now part of BASF.