Dataset Information

Identification of Bartonellae in the soft tick species Ornithodoros sonrai in Senegal.

ABSTRACT: Ticks, belonging to the soft ticks species Ornithodorus sonrai, have been collected from six sites in Senegal and were tested for the presence of Bartonella spp. Initial screening by PCR revealed the presence of these bacteria in ticks from two villages, Soulkhou Thissé (5/8, 62.5%) and Maka Gouye (1/24, 4.2%). Three bacterial strains were isolated from live ticks, and the genetic characterization of these strains suggests that they belong to two previously unknown species. The pathogenicity of these two new species of Bartonella is not yet known. The new isolates described here are the first strains of Bartonella spp. from soft ticks and the first isolates from any arthropod species in Africa.

SUBMITTER: Mediannikov O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3880920 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Identification of Bartonellae in the soft tick species Ornithodoros sonrai in Senegal.

Mediannikov Oleg O Diatta Georges G Kasongo Kangaji K Raoult Didier D

Vector borne and zoonotic diseases (Larchmont, N.Y.) 20131220 1

Ticks, belonging to the soft ticks species Ornithodorus sonrai, have been collected from six sites in Senegal and were tested for the presence of Bartonella spp. Initial screening by PCR revealed the presence of these bacteria in ticks from two villages, Soulkhou Thissé (5/8, 62.5%) and Maka Gouye (1/24, 4.2%). Three bacterial strains were isolated from live ticks, and the genetic characterization of these strains suggests that they belong to two previously unknown species. The pathogenicity of ...[more]

PMID: 24359424

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Project description:The soft ticks, Ornithodoros sonrai, are known as vectors of the tick-borne relapsing fever caused by Borrelia spp. and have also been reported to carry other micro-organisms. The objective of this study was to collect and to identify O. sonrai ticks and to investigate the micro-organisms associated with them. In 2019, an investigation of burrows within human dwellings was conducted in 17 villages in the Niakhar area and in 15 villages in the Sine-Saloum area in the Fatick region of Senegal. Ticks collected from the burrows were identified morphologically and by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Micro-organism screening was performed by bacteria-specific qPCR and some identifications were made by standard PCR and gene sequencing. O. sonrai ticks were found in 100% (17/17) of the villages surveyed in the Niakhar area and in 66% (10/15) of the villages in the Sine-Saloum area. A total of 1275 soft tick specimens were collected from small mammal burrows. The ticks collected were morphologically identified as O. sonrai. About 20% (259/1275) of the specimens were also submitted to MALDI-TOF MS for identification. Among the resulting MS profiles, 87% (139/159) and 95% (95/100) were considered good quality specimens, preserved in alcohol and silica gel, respectively. All spectra of good quality were tested against our MALDI-TOF MS arthropod spectra database and identified as O. sonrai species, corroborating the morphological classification. The carriage of four micro-organisms was detected in the ticks with a high prevalence of Bartonella spp., Anaplasmataceae, and Borrelia spp. of 35, 28, and 26%, respectively, and low carriage of Coxiella burnetii (2%). This study highlights the level of tick infestation in domestic burrows, the inventory of pathogens associated with the O. sonrai tick, and the concern about the potential risk of tick involvement in the transmission of these pathogens in Senegal.

Project description:Two Borrelia isolates (CA434 and CA435) cultured from the soft tick Ornithodoros coriaceus were analyzed by contour-clamped homogeneous electric field gel electrophoresis of unrestricted and ApaI-restricted DNA, standard electrophoresis of BamHI- and HindIII-restricted DNA, Southern hybridization, restriction fragment length polymorphism and sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and amplification of the 5S-23S intergenic spacer region. These isolates were compared with Borrelia coriaceae type strain Co53, B. burgdorferi sensu stricto strain CA4, and the relapsing-fever spirochete B. parkeri (undesignated). The 16S rRNA region of CA434 and CA435 differed from that of B. coriaceae type strain Co53 by the presence of 1 base (C) at position 367 (GenBank accession no. U42286). The linear plasmid profile of CA434 was similar to that of Co53, and the ApaI, BamHI, and HindIII restriction fingerprints of the total cellular DNA of CA434 and Co53 were similar. In contrast, CA435 differed somewhat from CA434 and Co53, which demonstrates that B. coriaceae is genetically diverse. Southern hybridization showed that the DNAs of CA434 and CA435 hybridized strongly with the digoxigenin-labeled DNA of Co53. Low homology was found between the DNA of Co53 and that of B. parkeri. The 16S rRNA sequence of B. parkeri was identical to previously published results for B. parkeri strain M3001 (GenBank accession number U42296). CA434 and CA435 represent only the second and third isolates of B. coriaceae obtained from any source since its initial isolation from an O. coriaceus tick in 1985. All three B. coriaceae isolates were derived from adult ticks collected from the same locality in northwestern California. Difficulties encountered in detecting B. coriaceae in, and isolating this spirochete from, the tissues of O. coriaceus are discussed. The lack of concordance between different detection or isolation methods suggests that reliance upon a single technique may grossly underestimate the true prevalence of spirochetal infection in wild-caught O. coriaceus ticks.

Project description:BackgroundIn Africa, relapsing fever borreliae are neglected vector-borne pathogens that cause mild to deadly septicemia and miscarriage. Screening vectors for the presence of borreliae currently requires technically demanding, time- and resource-consuming molecular methods. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has recently emerged as a tool for the rapid identification of vectors and the identification of cultured borreliae. We investigated whether MALDI-TOF-MS could detect relapsing fever borreliae directly in ticks.Methodology/principal findingsAs a first step, a Borrelia MALDI-TOF-MS database was created to house the newly determined Mean Spectrum Projections for four Lyme disease group and ten relapsing fever group reference borreliae. MALDI-TOF-MS yielded a unique protein profile for each of the 14 tested Borrelia species, with 100% reproducibility over 12 repeats. In a second proof-of-concept step, the Borrelia database and a custom software program that subtracts the uninfected O. sonrai profile were used to detect Borrelia crocidurae in 20 Ornithodoros sonrai ticks, including eight ticks that tested positive for B. crocidurae by PCR-sequencing. A B. crocidurae-specific pattern consisting of 3405, 5071, 5898, 7041, 8580 and 9757-m/z peaks was found in all B. crocidurae-infected ticks and not found in any of the un-infected ticks. In a final blind validation step, MALDI-TOF-MS exhibited 88.9% sensitivity and 93.75% specificity for the detection of B. crocidurae in 50 O. sonrai ticks, including 18 that tested positive for B. crocidurae by PCR-sequencing. MALDI-TOF-MS took 45 minutes to be completed.Conclusions/significanceAfter the development of an appropriate database, MALDI-TOF-MS can be used to identify tick species and the presence of relapsing fever borreliae in a single assay. This work paves the way for the use of MALDI-TOF-MS for the dual identification of vectors and vectorized pathogens.

Project description:African swine fever (ASF) is a lethal hemorrhagic disease in domestic pigs and wild suids caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV), which threatens the swine industry globally. In its native African enzootic foci, ASFV is naturally circulating between soft ticks of the genus Ornithodoros, especially in the O. moubata group, and wild reservoir suids, such as warthogs (Phacochoerus spp.) that are bitten by infected soft ticks inhabiting their burrows. While the ability of some Afrotropical soft ticks to transmit and maintain ASFV is well established, the vector status of Palearctic soft tick species for ASFV strains currently circulating in Eurasia remains largely unknown. For example, the Iberian soft tick O. erraticus is a known vector and reservoir of ASFV, but its ability to transmit different ASFV strains has not been assessed since ASF re-emerged in Europe in 2007. Little is known about vector competence for ASFV in other species, such as O. verrucosus, which occurs in southern parts of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and parts of Russia, and in the Caucasus. Therefore, we conducted transmission trials with two Palearctic soft tick species, O. erraticus and O. verrucosus, and the Afrotropical species O. moubata. We tested the ability of ticks to transmit virulent ASFV strains, including one of direct African origin (Liv13/33), and three from Eurasia that had been involved in previous (OurT88/1), and the current epizooties (Georgia2007/1 and Ukr12/Zapo). Our experimental results showed that O. moubata was able to transmit the African and Eurasian ASFV strains, whereas O. erraticus and O. verrucosus failed to transmit the Eurasian ASFV strains. However, naïve pigs showed clinical signs of ASF when inoculated with homogenates of crushed O. erraticus and O. verrucosus ticks that fed on viraemic pigs, which proved the infectiousness of ASFV contained in the ticks. These results documented that O. erraticus and O. verrucosus are unlikely to be capable vectors of ASFV strains currently circulating in Eurasia. Additionally, the persistence of infection in soft ticks for several months reaffirms that the infectious status of a given tick species is only part of the data required to assess its vector competence for ASFV.

Dataset Information

Identification of Bartonellae in the soft tick species Ornithodoros sonrai in Senegal.

Publications

Identification of Bartonellae in the soft tick species Ornithodoros sonrai in Senegal.

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