A search for piroplasmids and spirochetes in threatened pudu ( Pudu puda ) and associated ticks from Southern Chile unveils a novel Babesia sp. and a variant of Borrelia chilensis

Abstract

Cervids are important hosts for ticks and although they are refractory to some tick‐borne agents such as Borrelia, they do act as reservoirs for others such as Babesia. Babesia and Borrelia are commonly transmitted by Ixodes spp. associated with deer, and most of the knowledge on their biological cycles comes from northern latitudes of the globe. In this study, we performed genetic screenings to detect tick‐borne agents in blood and Ixodes stilesi ticks collected from an insular population of threatened pudu (Pudu puda), a pygmy deer species that inhabits temperate rainforests of southern South America. Inferred by phylogenetic analyses for 18S rRNA, COI and cytb genes, our results unveiled a novel genospecies of Babesia (Babesia sp. pudui) genetically related to Babesia odocoilei, a species that infects Odocoileus virginianus deer in North America. Although blood of the deer was negative for Borrelia infection, multilocus sequencing typing performed in one I. stilesi tick revealed the occurrence of a novel genetic variant of Borrelia chilensis, differing 0.93% and 0.18% in flaB and pepX genes with the type of strain for the species, respectively. Such a genetic divergence could be the result of thousands of years of isolation because of recent glaciation events that separated pudus and their tick populations at Chiloé Island approximately 437,000 years ago. The finding of a Babesia sp. has no precedents for wild and domestic ungulates in Chile and shows a novel piroplasmid that must be considered now on in rehabilitation centres and zoos that attend pudu deer. Further research is now necessary to confirm pathogenic roles.

Hepatozoon (Eucoccidiorida: Hepatozoidae) in wild mammals of the Americas: a systematic review

“…Trees were visualized and edited with FigTree v. 1.4.1 ( http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/software/figtree/ ) and Inkscape v 1.1 ( https://inkscape.org/es/ ). A consensus phylogram for both ML and BI was generated following the approach outlined by Santodomingo et al [ 34 ].…”

Tetrathyridia in an endemic lizard from Chile: molecular evidence for South America

“…Alignments were constructed with MAFFT algorithm in Geneious Prime to then extract the informative regions, as suggested by Santodomingo et al . (2022). The phylogenetic analyses for both loci were performed using maximum likelihood method (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) with IQ-TREE v1.6.12 and MrBayes v3.2.6, respectively (see Oyarzún-Ruiz et al 2022).…”

“…The phylogenetic analyses for both loci were performed using maximum likelihood method (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) with IQ-TREE v1.6.12 and MrBayes v3.2.6, respectively (see Oyarzún-Ruiz et al 2022). Consensus tree for ML and BI was generated for every locus following Santodomingo et al (2022).…”

“…Total genomic DNA was extracted from single worms for every morphotype by employing DNeasy blood and animal tissue kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany) following manufacturer's instructions. DNA quantity and quality for each sample was tested with an Epoch TM Microplate Spectrophotometer (Santodomingo et al 2022). The extracted DNA was preserved at -24°C until analysis.…”

“…Basic local alignment searches were performed using the BLASTn tool (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), and similar sequences were downloaded from GenBank (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Alignments were constructed with MAFFT algorithm in Geneious Prime to then extract the informative regions, as suggested by Santodomingo et al (2022). The phylogenetic analyses for both loci were performed using maximum likelihood method (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) with IQ-TREE v1.6.12 and MrBayes v3.2.6, respectively (see Oyarzún-Ruiz et al 2022).…”