The lagomorph‐infecting Treponema paraluisleporidarum is a close relative of the human syphilis‐bacterium Treponema pallidum. There is a paucity of information on the epidemiology of hare syphilis and its relationship to the rabbit‐ and human‐infecting treponemes that cause syphilis. In our study, we tested 734 serum samples from European brown hares (Lepus europaeus) collected between 2007 and 2019 in the federal state of Lower Saxony, Germany, for the presence of antibodies against T. paraluisleporidarum. Since T. paraluisleporidarum cross‐reacts with T. pallidum antigen, we used a commercially available T. pallidum‐particle agglutination (TP‐PA) assay to test for the presence of antibodies. A high seropositivity (n = 405/734) was detected. An additional 233 serum samples were retested using a fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption test to confirm the results of the TP‐PA assay. Our results show that infection is widespread in Lower Saxony and suggest a horizontal (sexual) transmission mode since adult hares show significantly higher seropositivity than subadults (odds ratio: 0.03 [95% CI 0.02–0.05], p < .0001). No difference was detected based on gender (odds ratio: 0.79 [95% Cl 0.58–1.07], p = .1283). Further studies are warranted to genetically characterize the T. paraluisleporidarum strains that infect wild hares.
Treponema paraluisleporidarum infects both rabbits (ecovar Cuniculus) and hares (ecovar Lepus). While the occurrence of the bacterium has previously been reported for European brown hares (Lepus europaeus) and domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus f. domestica), there are no data available that report infection in the European context. We tested a total of 1,995 serum samples and 287 genital swabs from opportunistically sampled European brown hares (Lepus europaeus; n = 2135), Mountain hares (Lepus timidus; n = 4), European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus; n = 138), and pet rabbits (O. cuniculus f. domestica; n = 5). The samples originated from eight European countries. In case only serum was available, we tested the samples for the presence of anti-treponemal antibodies. For this, we utilized the Treponema pallidum-particle agglutination test (TP-PA), which is suited for the use in lagomorphs due to the antigenic cross-reactivity of anti-T. pallidum and anti-T. paraluisleporidarum antibodies. In addition, the results of 380 sera were confirmed using the fluorescent-Treponema antibody absorption test (FTA-ABS). In all cases where swab samples were available, DNA was extracted and tested using quantitative PCR to test for the presence of the lagomorph syphilis-bacterium. We were able to detect antibodies in 825 of 1,995 lagomorph sera (41.4%; brown hare: 825/1,868; rabbit: 0/127) and obtained positive qPCR results from 182 of 287 swab samples (63.4%; European brown hare: 167/267; mountain hare: 4/4; rabbit: 11/16). While all rabbit sera (n = 127) tested negative for anti-treponemal antibodies, the presence of the bacterium was confirmed in eight wild (n = 8/11) and three domestic rabbits (n = 3/5) from Germany using qPCR.
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