Identification and characterization of histidine-rich peptides from hard ticks \kur{Ixodes ricinus} and \kur{Ixodes scapularis}.

Antimicrobial (cationic) proteins play an important role in innate imunity. Such proteins can possess antibacterial, antiendotoxic or fungicidal abilities. The rising resistence of microbes to common antibiotics evokes acute need of studying more endogenous proteins to reveal new potential antibiotics. Ticks, the blood-feeding ectoparasites with effectual defense system, present an endless source of newly described and unknown antimicrobial peptides/proteins with significant theurapeutic potential. This study represents identification of histidine-rich proteins detected in Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes scapularis, that are related to recently described new family of proteins isolated from Rhipicephalus microplus (protein microplusin) and Amblyomma hebraeum (protein heraein). Analysis and characterization of newly identified histidine rich proteins, study of their antimicrobial and protease inhibitory effect are the main goals of this study