{"id":207682,"date":"2026-05-29T09:05:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/?p=207682"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:05:39","slug":"what-is-hiding-in-ticks-in-budapest-important-findings-affecting-human-health-from-the-hun-ren-uvmb-research-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/2026\/05\/what-is-hiding-in-ticks-in-budapest-important-findings-affecting-human-health-from-the-hun-ren-uvmb-research-group\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Hiding in Ticks in Budapest? Important Findings Affecting Human Health from the HUN-REN\u2013UVMB Research Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

The study led by Prof. S\u00e1ndor Hornok, Head of the HUN-REN\u2013UVMB\u00a0Climate Change: New Blood-sucking Parasites and Vector-borne Pathogens Research Group, jointly\u00a0operated\u00a0by HUN-REN and the University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, has yielded findings of outstanding international significance. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), as well as\u00a0the\u00a0veterinarian Dr.\u00a0Orsolya P\u00e9teri, played a key role in the research.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Over the course of one year, the researchers collected and analysed ticks in an outer district of Budapest. During the study, they discovered a series of mutations that can only be explained by mitochondrial genes integrated into the cell nucleus. Such genes had not previously been\u00a0identified\u00a0in ticks. In addition, they developed a new method for estimating the age of the affected ticks, which\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0that the mutant genes could, unusually, be detected more\u00a0frequently\u00a0in young ticks. Another major finding of the study was that a bacterial pathogen of Far Eastern origin was identified for the first time in an urban area of Central Europe, while a unicellular parasite hazardous to humans occurred in the samples at a prevalence that is outstanding even by global standards. The study reporting these findings was published in the prestigious\u00a0Q1\u00a0journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In the temperate zone, ticks are regarded as the most important vectors of pathogens. In the European part of the Western Palaearctic, the two most widespread tick species are the common tick\u00a0<\/span>(Ixodes\u00a0ricinus)<\/span><\/i>\u00a0and the ornate dog tick\u00a0<\/span>(Dermacentor reticulatus).<\/span><\/i>\u00a0One of the most\u00a0important differences\u00a0between them is that the former\u00a0frequently\u00a0feeds on birds\u00a0and therefore\u00a0has a fluctuating population,\u00a0whereas\u00a0this is not typical of the latter, whose resident populations are more exposed to local environmental effects. These two species also predominated at the Budapest habitat investigated in the study.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Using a general PCR-based genetic testing method, the researchers\u00a0identified\u00a0a series of theoretically lethal mutations in the mitochondrial\u00a0cox1\u00a0gene of local ornate dog ticks collected at the beginning of the season. Most of these ticks were young adults. However, when the complete mitochondrial gene set of the same ticks showing these alterations was examined using a more specific method, the lethal mutations were absent. This\u00a0indicates\u00a0that the mutations were present only in non-functional mitochondrial DNA integrated into the cell nucleus, known as\u00a0NUMTs\u00a0(nuclear mitochondrial DNA). Although the existence of\u00a0NUMTs\u00a0is known in humans and in many animal species, they had not previously been\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0in ticks. Their importance lies in the fact that their analysis can provide information on the origin,\u00a0age\u00a0and health status of a population, as well as on the effects of mutagenic substances present in the environment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The Budapest study also detected a zoonotic bacterium,\u00a0<\/span>Ehrlichia\u00a0muris<\/span><\/i>, which may have arrived with birds migrating from\u00a0the Far East\u00a0and, and according to the findings, has already become endemic, that is, permanently\u00a0established, in the suburban habitat studied. In\u00a0addition,\u00a0whereas\u00a0the zoonotic unicellular parasite\u00a0<\/span>Babesia microti<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is typically found in around 1\u20132% of\u00a0common\u00a0ticks in Hungary, it was detected in 36% of the specimens collected in Budapest in spring, which is considered\u00a0a very high\u00a0rate. Comparable prevalence has previously been reported only in ticks in North America, where, unlike in Europe, this species\u00a0is responsible for\u00a0most cases of human babesiosis, a parasitic infection that attacks red blood cells.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The study led by Prof. S\u00e1ndor Hornok, Head of the HUN-REN\u2013UVMB\u00a0Climate Change: New Blood-sucking Parasites and Vector-borne Pathogens Research Group, jointly\u00a0operated\u00a0by HUN-REN and the University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, has yielded findings of outstanding international significance. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), as well as\u00a0the\u00a0veterinarian Dr.\u00a0Orsolya P\u00e9teri, played a key role in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4837,"featured_media":207667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207684,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207682\/revisions\/207684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/univet.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}