Induction and suppression of tick cell antiviral RNAi responses by tick-borne flaviviruses. Nucleic Acids Res

Arboviruses are transmitted by distantly related arthropod vectors such as mosquitoes (class In-secta) and ticks (class Arachnida). RNA interference (RNAi) is the major antiviral mechanism in arthro-pods against arboviruses. Unlike in mosquitoes, tick antiviral RNAi is not understood, although this in-formation is important to compare arbovirus/host interactions in different classes of arbovirus vec-tos. Using an Ixodes scapularis-derived cell line, key Argonaute proteins involved in RNAi and the response against tick-borne Langat virus (Flaviviri-dae) replication were identified and phylogenetic re