Virome diversity of Hyalomma dromedarii ticks collected from camels in the United Arab Emirates

Vet World Vol.16 March-2023 Article-3

Research Article

Veterinary World, 16(3): 439-448

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2023.439-448

Nighat Perveen¹, Biduth Kundu¹, Naganeeswaran Sudalaimuthuasari², Raja Saeed Al-Maskari¹, Sabir Bin Muzaffar¹, and Mohammad Ali Al-Deeb¹

1. Department of Biology, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, P.O. Box 15551, UAE.
2. Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, P.O. Box 15551, UAE.

Background and Aim: Viruses are important components of the microbiome of ticks. Ticks are capable of transmitting several serious viral diseases to humans and animals. Hitherto, the composition of viral communities in Hyalomma dromedarii ticks associated with camels in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) remains unexplored. This study aimed to characterize the RNA virome diversity in male and female H. dromedarii ticks collected from camels in Al Ain, UAE.

Materials and Methods: We collected ticks, extracted, and sequenced RNA, using Illumina (NovaSeq 6000) and Oxford Nanopore (MinION).

Results: From the total generated sequencing reads, 180,559 (~0.35%) and 197,801 (~0.34%) reads were identified as virus-related reads in male and female tick samples, respectively. Taxonomic assignment of the viral sequencing reads was accomplished based on bioinformatic analyses. Further, viral reads were classified into 39 viral families. Poxiviridae, Phycodnaviridae, Phenuiviridae, Mimiviridae, and Polydnaviridae were the most abundant families in the tick viromes. Notably, we assembled the genomes of three RNA viruses, which were placed by phylogenetic analyses in clades that included the Bole tick virus.

Conclusion: Overall, this study attempts to elucidate the RNA virome of ticks associated with camels in the UAE and the results obtained from this study improve the knowledge of the diversity of viruses in H. dromedarii ticks. Keywords: camels, Hyalomma dromedarii, nanopore technology, UAE, viral diversity, virome analysis, whole genome sequencing.

Keywords: camels, Hyalomma dromedarii, nanopore technology, UAE, viral diversity, virome analysis, whole genome sequencing.

How to cite this article: Perveen N, Kundu B, Sudalaimuthuasari N, Al-Maskari RS, Muzaffar SB, and Al-Deeb MA (2023) Virome diversity of

Received: 13-11-2022 Accepted: 30-01-2023 Published online: 16-03-2023

Corresponding author: Mohammad Ali Al-Deeb E-mail: m_aldeeb@uaeu.ac.ae

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2023.439-448

Copyright: Perveen, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.