AUTHOR=Temmam Sarah , Chrétien Delphine , Bigot Thomas , Dufour Evelyne , Petres Stéphane , Desquesnes Marc , Devillers Elodie , Dumarest Marine , Yousfi Léna , Jittapalapong Sathaporn , Karnchanabanthoeng Anamika , Chaisiri Kittipong , Gagnieur Léa , Cosson Jean-François , Vayssier-Taussat Muriel , Morand Serge , Moutailler Sara , Eloit Marc TITLE=Monitoring Silent Spillovers Before Emergence: A Pilot Study at the Tick/Human Interface in Thailand JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=10 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02315 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2019.02315 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
Emerging zoonoses caused by previously unknown agents are one of the most important challenges for human health because of their inherent inability to be predictable, conversely to emergences caused by previously known agents that could be targeted by routine surveillance programs. Emerging zoonotic infections either originate from increasing contacts between wildlife and human populations, or from the geographical expansion of hematophagous arthropods that act as vectors, this latter being more capable to impact large-scale human populations. While characterizing the viral communities from candidate vectors in high-risk geographical areas is a necessary initial step, the need to identify which viruses are able to spill over and those restricted to their hosts has recently emerged. We hypothesized that currently unknown tick-borne arboviruses could silently circulate in specific biotopes where mammals are highly exposed to tick bites, and implemented a strategy that combined high-throughput sequencing with broad-range serological techniques to both identify novel arboviruses and tick-specific viruses in a ticks/mammals interface in Thailand. The virome of Thai ticks belonging to the