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Purpose In recent decades, the incidence and distribution of tick-borne diseases have increased worldwide, attracting the attention of both clinicians and veterinarians. In Sardinia, notifiable tick-borne diseases are spreading and Mediterranean spotted fever (MSF) rickettsiosis continues to be endemic with an incidence of 10/10,000 inhabitants per year. Furthermore, ticks can transfer more than one pathogen after a single blood meal from a coinfected host or after multiple feeding on different infected hosts. The aim of this study was to update information on ticks and tick-borne diseases, focusing also on the presence of coinfection in Sardinian ticks. Methods The presence of protozoan (Theileria and Babesia species) and bacterial pathogens (Rickettsia spp., Anaplasma spp., Ehrlichia canis, Chlamydia spp., Bartonella spp., and Coxiella burnetii) was evaluated in 230 ticks collected from different hosts in Sardinia. Results PCR and sequencing analyses highlighted that the 59% of ticks were infected with at least one pathogen while the 15% resulted in coinfection by double and triple pathogens. Among the double co-infections, those of E. canis/C. burnetii, Babesia sp. Anglona/Ch. psittaci and Babesia sp. Anglona/C. burnetii revealed a statistically significant index of coinfection. Conclusion This study identifies new pathogens in Sardinian ticks and updates the information about tick-borne diseases in the island. We also provide new results on the presence of coinfections in collected ticks. The knowledge about the diversity of ticks and tick-borne diseases circulating in Sardinia is a necessary step toward implementing effective tick-borne disease prevention and control programs.

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Mycoplasma agalactiae, the causative agent of contagious agalactia in small ruminants, produces a protein, named P80, that is detectable in all wild-type isolates examined to date and that appears expressed during the early phase of infection. We describe here the identification, cloning and expression of the gene encoding P80 (ma-mp81). The deduced amino acid sequence is consistent with a hydrophobic and basic protein that possesses a lipoprotein signal peptide. Sequence analysis of gene ma-mp81 suggests that P80 is a membrane lipoprotein that shows significant homology with other putative lipoproteins of M. pneumoniae. An internal 1-kb fragment of ma-mp81 was expressed in Escherichia coli as a 6xHis-tagged protein. The purified recombinant protein greatly reacted with polyclonal anti-P80 sera raised in lamb.