Tick saliva drug can ease chronic pain, itching in people: Study
Mar 09, 2022
New Delhi, March 09 (ANI): Ticks are small, brown parasites that are known for carrying disease and that can attach to a person's skin and suck their blood. A new research has found that a protein, called Votucalis, found in tick saliva could be turned into a drug that eases itching and chronic pain in people.
Votucalis is derived from the saliva of ticks - in this case, the brown-ear tick Rhipicephalus appendiculatus - who secrete the protein into their host when feeding so the host is unaware that they have been bitten. Votucalis is a biologic drug that works by binding histamine, produced in the body, with high affinity and thereby prevents histamine from activating its four cell surface receptors resulting in a reduced itch or chronic pain responses.
