Vipin S Rana, Chrysoula Kitsou, Shraboni Dutta, Michael H Ronzetti, Min Zhang, Quentin Bernard, Alexis A Smith, Julen Tomás-Cortázar, Xiuli Yang, Ming-Jie Wu, Oleksandra Kepple, Weizhong Li, Jennifer E Dwyer, Jaqueline Matias, Bolormaa Baljinnyam, Jonathan D Oliver, Nallakkandi Rajeevan, Joao H F Pedra, Sukanya Narasimhan, Yan Wang, Ulrike Munderloh, Erol Fikrig, Anton Simeonov, Juan Anguita, Utpal Pal
Ancestral signaling pathways serve critical roles in metazoan development, physiology, and immunity. We report an evolutionary interspecies communication pathway involving a central Ixodes scapularis tick receptor termed Dome1, which acquired a mammalian cytokine receptor motif exhibiting high affinity for interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). Host-derived IFN-γ facilitates Dome1-mediated activation of the Ixodes JAK-STAT pathway. This accelerates tick blood meal acquisition and development while upregulating antimicrobial components...
January 13, 2023: Science