{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,27]],"date-time":"2025-08-27T04:40:20Z","timestamp":1756269620443,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,27]],"date-time":"2025-08-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1756252800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Ticks are a group of arthropod vectors transmitting a variety of human pathogens, like <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> and the tick-borne Encephalitis virus. In Europe, <jats:italic>Ixodes<\/jats:italic> is the most important tick due to its wide distribution. Since the 20th century, <jats:italic>Ixodes<\/jats:italic> has significantly spread due to changes in biodiversity. Thus, there is an urgent need to decrease tick ubiquity in the environment to control tick-borne diseases.<\/jats:p><jats:p>Deoxyhypusine Synthase (DHS) catalyzes the first step in the post translational modification (PTM) of the amino acid hypusine in eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF5A). Modified eIF5A plays a crucial role in cell proliferation of different parasites. Therefore, we cloned a putative DHS locus of 1098 bp from <jats:italic>Ixodes<\/jats:italic> by a reverse genetic approach from total RNA of salivary glands and expressed the protein in <jats:italic>E. coli<\/jats:italic>. <jats:italic>Ixodes<\/jats:italic> DHS encodes an ORF of 365 amino acids and is commonly spread in different <jats:italic>Ixodes<\/jats:italic> (98.36%) and <jats:italic>Rhipicephalus<\/jats:italic> species (99%), and fruit flies (70.92%). The expressed DHS protein has a molecular weight of 40.88 kDa and a determined pI of 5.12. In an activity assay the enzyme shows moderate activity. In the future, we intend to perform virtual docking experiments once a 3D structure of <jats:italic>Ixodes ricinus<\/jats:italic> has been resolved to evaluate DHS as a novel target and to discover potent inhibitors to define its role in infection.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2025.1638906","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,27]],"date-time":"2025-08-27T04:14:28Z","timestamp":1756268068000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The hypusine pathway in Ixodes ricinus: molecular cloning and validation of deoxyhypusine synthase as a novel target for drug discovery to treat and prevent vector borne diseases"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Annette","family":"Kaiser","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Enzo","family":"Agostinelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Dimitrios","family":"Tsikas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"459","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4684-5637-0_40","article-title":"Deoxyhypusine hydroxylase","volume":"250","author":"Abbruzzese","year":"1988","journal-title":"Adv. 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