Non Technical Summary
The emergence of African swine fever virus (ASFV) in Africa, Europe, and recent emergences inAsia and the Caribbean demonstrates a threatening trend for continued global invasion andestablishment. ASFV causes significant morbidity and mortality in domestic swine which coulddevastate the US swine industry. The virus is transmitted horizontally from pig to pig as well as bysoft tick vectors in the Argasidae family. Quantifying the degree of vector-borne versus horizontaltransmission for endemic maintenance and global spread is a critical gap in knowledge for effectivemanagement of this high-consequence transboundary foreign animal disease. We propose toadvance tools to quantify soft tick contact with domestic and wild swine in both an endemic regionof Uganda with active ASFV transmission as well as regions of the US that are consideredreceptive to ASFV. Our two specific aims are 1) determine the vertebrate host community utilizedby argasid ticks, competent vectors of ASFV, and 2) quantify serological evidence of swineexposure to soft tick and hard tick bites. This proposal will be accomplished using our establishedbloodmeal metabarcoding of soft ticks as well as our salivary biomarker assay which measures pasttick bites in swine. This project will partner with two national agencies in Uganda, an ASF endemiccountry: National Agricultural Research Organization and Makerere University to facilitate thestudy of tick-swine contact to facilitate improved management of this virus in endemic settings aswell as proactive management to help limit viral spread to receptive habitats.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
311	0830	1101	25%
312	3120	1040	25%
721	3510	1130	25%
807	4030	1070	25%

Knowledge Area
807 - Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery; 312 - External Parasites and Pests of Animals; 311 - Animal Diseases; 721 - Insects and Other Pests Affecting Humans;

Subject Of Investigation
3120 - Spiders, mites, ticks, and other arthropods; 3510 - Swine, live animal; 0830 - Wild animals; 4030 - Viruses;

Field Of Science
1040 - Molecular biology; 1101 - Virology; 1130 - Entomology and acarology; 1070 - Ecology;

Goals / Objectives
Our goal is to advance tools to quantify soft tick contact with domestic and wild swine in both an endemic region of Uganda with active African swine fever virus (ASFV)transmission as well as regions of the US that are considered receptive to ASFV. Our two specific aims are 1) determine the vertebrate host community utilized by argasid ticks, competent vectors of ASFV, and 2) quantify serological evidence of swine exposure to soft tick and hard tick bites.This proposal will be accomplished using our established bloodmeal metabarcoding of soft ticks as well as our salivary biomarker assay which measures past tick bites in swine.

Project Methods
We will measure contact between ticks and swine with two approaches. One will be the bloodmeal metabarcoding which utilizes ticks captured in nature and a DNA-based PCR of conserved vertebrate genes, followed by amplicon deep sequencing and bioinformatics, will reveal the diverse vertebrate hosts that ticks are feeding on. The other tool is a serological biomarker which detects antibodies in swine that are developed in response to tick feeding, which introduces salivary proteins. These proteins that are specific to Ornithodoros soft tick species will be identified and generated as recombinant?proteins to be used in salivary bioassays of swine with known tick exposure (experiments conducted in Uganda) and swine of unknown tick exposure (swine serum banked in Uganda).