Project:

Lone star tick microbiome

Students:

Asma Asghar, Farihah Chowdhury

School:

William Floyd HS, Suffolk

Mentors:

Victoria D'Ambrosia

Abstract:

A microbiome is a microbial community that lives within an ecosystem or organism. The study of microbiomes within Amblyomma cajennense is crucial as the bite of this organism is associated with the onset of alpha gal allergies. Prior research indicates that more than 25% of tick borne pathogen cases diagnosed in the United States are derived from the Long Island territory of New York, predominantly in Suffolk County (National Wildlife Association, 2016). This case focused on analyzing the microbiomes of Amblyomma cajennense in different sites of Suffolk County. It was hypothesized that due to difference in the ecosystems, the microbiomes of ticks would vary between the locations. In order to support or refute the given hypothesis, liquid nitrogen and the MoBio protocol were used to extract the DNA from the ticks and resulted in the successful amplification of the 16S rRNA gene. Then Jupyter notebook and QIIME analysis were used to analyze the 16S genes of microbes within ticks from dif

Poster:

Team samples: