Vaccination of cattle with the Babesia bovis sexual-stage protein HAP2 abrogates parasite transmission by Rhipicephalus microplus ticks.

"Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"We especially acknowledge Paul Lacy for his assistance with the maintenance of B. bovis in vitro cultures, tick analysis, microscopy, and PCR. We appreciate the help and advice of Kathy Mason for the animal experiment planning and preparation. We also thank Dr. Glen Scoles and Dr. Massaro Ueti for fruitful discussions, and Carl Johnson for his help in preparing the vaccine challenge. We are thankful to Ralph Horn, James Allison, and Megan Jacks for their help with farm animal management, and Sara Davis and Gavin Scoles for their technical help in tick sample processing. We acknowledge financial support from the International Development Research Center (IDRC) [Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (Grant 108525), funded by the Canadian Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation], the United States Department of Agriculture (ARS-USDA CRIS 2090-32000-039-00-D), the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Award Number: 2020-67015-31809; Proposal Number 2019-05375, Accession number: 1022541), the Australian Research Council (DPI180102584), and the National Research Center and Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research of Egypt."