Detection of Anaplasma phagocytophilum genotypes that are potentially virulent for human in wild ruminants and Ixodes ricinus in Central Italy

Abstract

Human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) is an emerging tick-borne zoonosis worldwide. As is the case for many tick-borne diseases, the epidemiological cycle is associated to the environmental conditions, including the presence of wild vertebrate reservoir hosts, vectors, climate and vegetation. In this study a total number of 87 spleen samples of wild ruminants carcasses from Central Italy, and 77 Ixodes ricinus collected from the same dead animals were screened for Anaplasma phagocytophilum by using Real Time PCR. A. phagocytophilum DNA was detected in 75%, 66.7% and 54.2% of the spleen samples from red deer (Cervus elaphus), Apennine chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) respectively, whereas it was detected in the 31.2% of I. ricinus. A total of 27 positive samples were characterized by sequencing a portion of the groEL gene. Two A. phagocytophilum lineages could clearly be delineated from the phylogenetic tree. Four sequences from red deer, 2 from I. ricinus and 1 from Apennine chamois clustered into lineage I together with those previously described as virulent genotypes related to HGA. The presence of A. phagocytophilum DNA in the Apennine chamois represents the first report for this Italian endemic subspecies.

Spotted fever group Rickettsiae in Dermacentor marginatus from wild boars in Italy

“…Although the role of wild boars in the epidemiology of SFGR is not completely clarified, our data suggest these animals as involved in the maintenance and spreading of D. marginatus and their related SFGR (Selmi et al, 2009;Raele et al, 2018). Although, studies from Italy (Di Domenico et al, 2016) and Spain (Ortuño et al, 2007) would suggest wild boar as candidate reservoir for R. slovaca , the detection of pathogen DNA in a single boar which not harboured any infected ticks does not allow any conclusion. In this study, the absence ofBorrelia burgdorferi s.l.…”

“…In the Mediterranean basin, the thermophilic sheep tickDermacentor marginatus (Sulzer, 1776) parasitizes mainly ungulates, being strongly associated to wild boar populations (Nosek, 1972;Di Domenico et al, 2016;Selmi et al, 2017). In addition, adults of D. marginatus may feed on humans (Estrada-Peña and Jongejan, 1999;Otranto et al, 2014), mainly in the scalp region (Parola et al, 2009), potentially transmitting zoonotic Gram-negative bacteria such asRickettsia spp., Borrelia afzelii and Coxiella burnetii (Rehácek et al, 1991;Spitalská et al 2012;Hornok et al, 2013).…”

“…In addition,Borrelia afzelii was molecularly detected in D. marginatuscollected from shepherd dogs in southern Hungary (Hornok et al, 2013) as well as in wild boars from Czech Republic (Juricová and Hubálek, 2009), northern Portugal (Faria et al, 2015) and central Italy (Ebani et al, 2017). Again, Q fever caused by Coxiella burnetii, an obligate Rickettsia -related intracellular microrganism affecting several wild and domestic mammal species (Guatteo et al, 2011) was detected in boar populations from different urbanized areas of Germary (Henning et al, 2015) Spain (Toledo et al, 2009) and central Italy (Di Domenico et al, 2016) with prevalence ranging from 1.9% to 8% (Henning et al, 2015;Di Domenico et al, 2016). The detection ofC.…”

Diverse tick-borne microorganisms identified in free-living ungulates in Slovakia

“…The infection rates of 100% in red deer, 95.4% in fallow deer, and 92.9% in roe deer estimated from our study are higher than values previously reported from Slovakia: red deer 17.5–53.1% [24, 57, 102]; fallow deer 66.7% [24], and roe deer 50–77% [24, 57, 102, 103]. The infection rates determined in this study are in the upper range of those confirmed by PCR in cervids from other countries of mainland Europe, where the values in red deer ranged between 1.5–86% [89, 104–114], in fallow deer between 1.5–72.5% [42, 105, 106, 108, 110, 112, 115, 116] and in roe deer between 9.6–98.9% [38, 42, 89, 105–113, 117–120]. The 88.9% infection rate in mouflon is higher than the values previously reported from Slovakia [57] and other European countries, where the prevalences ranged from 4% to 74.4% [42, 106, 110, 111].…”

“…For example, no A. phagocytophilum was detected in I. ricinus collected from roe deer in Slovakia and Poland [112, 118], but in other sites in Poland, 12.5% and 9% of ticks from roe deer and red deer, respectively, were found to be infected [58]. For engorged ticks from cervids in Italy, a 31.2% prevalence [113] or 29.9% positive pools [128] were found, but no information on the tick developmental stage was given. In another study from Italy, a prevalence of 11% and 5.4% was detected for nymphs/adults and larvae, respectively [129].…”