Molecular characterization of arthropod-borne hematozoans in wild mammals from Brazil, Venezuela and Spain

Abstract

A survey of Babesia, Theileria and Hepatozoon was conducted in wild mammals, including the capybara (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris; n = 14) from Brazil, the jaguar (Panthera onca; n = 2) and crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus; n = 4) from Venezuela, and the red deer (Cervus elaphus; n = 70), red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris; n = 5) and Eurasian pine marten (Martes martes; n = 3) from Spain. Diagnostic procedures included both microscopy and molecular methods (PCR and sequencing of the 18S rRNA gene). Microscopic examination of blood smears revealed no hematozoan infections -unlike the molecular analyses. Nine Brazilian capybaras were found to be infected with Hepatozoon canis (prevalence 64%), two of which were coinfected with a previously unknown babesid (prevalence 14%) loosely related to Theileria equi (90% 18S rRNA gene similarity according to BLASTN ® analysis).One jaguar and one crab-eating raccoon from Venezuela were infected by H. canis. Four of the red deer were infected with theilerids (5.7% prevalence), two with Theileria sp. and two with T. annulata. One red squirrel and three pine martens were infected with Hepatozoon sp. The isolate form the red squirrel was phylogenetically related to Hepatozoon sp. reported in Spanish bank voles, whereas those infecting the pine martens were related to Hepatozoon felis reported in Spanish cats. In conclusion, the molecular findings show that some non-canid mammals are carriers of H. canis in South America, while red deer may carry T. annulata in Europe. Small mammals in Europe appear to be unlikely hosts of H. canis and H. felis.

Is the free-ranging jaguar (Panthera onca) a reservoir for Cytauxzoon felis in Brazil?

“…As in the present study, no free-ranging jaguars in Venezuela, French Guiana and the Pantanal were found to be positive for Babesia spp. (Criado-Fornelio et al, 2009;Thoisy et al, 2000). André et al (2011) reported captive jaguars seropositive for B. vogeli, however, the same individuals were negative when performing molecular testing.…”

First report of Hepatozoon (Apicomplexa: Adeleorina) from king ratsnakes (Elaphe carinata) in Shanghai, with description of a new species

“…The sequences have been submitted to GenBank (accession numbers KF939620 to KF939628) and were subjected to the basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) sequence similarity search to identify the most similar available sequences. Forty-seven named or unnamed Hepatozoon sequences were retrieved from GenBank (Carreno et al 1999;Oyamada et al 2005;Criado-Fornelio et al 2006;Sloboda et al 2007;Kubo et al 2008;Criado-Fornelio, Buling, Casado et al 2009;Criado-Fornelio, Buling, Pingret et al 2009;Merino et al 2009;Maia et al 2011Maia et al , 2012Barta et al 2012) and were aligned with the derived sequences using ClustalW software implemented in BioEdit (Hall 1999). Phylogenetic relationships were estimated using maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian analyses.…”

Pesquisa de carrapatos, agentes transmitidos por carrapatos e tripanossomatídeos em animais silvestres do estados de Mato Grosso e Pará

“…Amostras de paca (C. paca) do Pará foram positivas e as sequências obtidas apresentaram similaridade (95%) com Babesia sp., descrita recentemente em capivaras (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris) do Rio Grande do Sul (CRIADO-FORNELIO et al, 2009). Uma das amostras de C. paca também foi positiva para o gênero Hepatozoon, sendo a sequência similar (95%) a Hepatozoon felis.…”

“…Uma das amostras de C. paca também foi positiva para o gênero Hepatozoon, sendo a sequência similar (95%) a Hepatozoon felis. No Brasil, foi relatada a infecção por Hepatozoon canis em capivaras (H. hydrochaeris) no Rio Grande do Sul (CRIADO-FORNELIO et al, 2009), contudo não há relatos da infecção por H. felis em C. paca, sendo este o primeiro.…”