Date of Award
5-2023
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Academic Program
Biological Sciences BS
Department
Biological Sciences
First Advisor
Dr Shahid Karim
Advisor Department
Biological Sciences
Abstract
Tick cell lines provide an affordable, reproducible, and efficient in vitro experimental system to study tick-pathogen interactions at the cellular level. Before the first tick cell lines were developed, there was no established method to perform in vitro studies with ticks. Tick research at the organismal level is full of difficulties and challenges. An increase in tick-borne infections and the availability of cutting-edge molecular tools have stimulated the research community's interest in using tick cell lines to answer important biological questions related to new and emerging tick-borne diseases. Unfortunately, not all medically relevant tick species have a cell line available. A stable Amblyomma maculatum (A. maculatum)-derived tick cell line, for example, has not been reported in the literature or deposited into the tick cell biobank. This project aimed to develop a continuous tick cell line derived from the A. maculatum tick. To do this, we developed primary cultures derived from embryos of A. maculatum. The cells displayed mixed morphologies, with many cells forming multicellular aggregates. While being maintained in liquid medium, we observed that some attached to the culture flask while some remained in suspension. The continued development of this cell line will not only have an immediate impact on the research that contributes to the understanding of A. maculatum but will contribute to the broader field of tick biology and tick-borne diseases.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Walia, Sabrina, "Developing a continuous cell line derived from the gulf-coast tick (Amblyomma maculatum) embryos" (2023). Honors Theses. 1151.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/1151