Molecular Evidence of Bartonella melophagi in Ticks in Border Areas of Xinjiang, China

Abstract

Bartonella are gram-negative intracellular bacteria; certain species of Bartonella can cause diseases in mammals and humans. Ticks play a major role in the transmission of Bartonella. Xinjiang is the largest province in China according to land area and has one-third of the tick species in China; the infection rate of Bartonella in ticks in the Xinjiang border areas has not been studied in detail. Therefore, this study investigated tick infections by Bartonella in Xinjiang border areas, and the purpose of the study was to fill in gaps in information regarding the genetic diversity of tick infections by Bartonella in Xinjiang. We tested 1,549 tick samples from domestic animals (sheep and cattle) for Bartonella using ribC-PCR. Positive samples from the ribC-PCR assay for Bartonella spp. were further subjected to PCR assays targeting the ITS, rpoB and gltA genes followed by phylogenetic analyses. Bartonella DNA was detected in 2.19% (34/1,549) of tick samples, and the ITS, rpoB and gltA genes of ribC gene-positive samples were amplified to identify nine samples of Bartonella melophagi. In this study, molecular analysis was used to assess the presence and genetic diversity of B. melophagi in ticks collected from sheep and cattle from Xinjiang, China. This study provides new information on the presence and identity of B. melophagi in ticks from sheep and cattle.

Metagenomic profiles of Dermacentor tick pathogens from across Mongolia, using next generation sequencing

“…Although our group has previously reported B. melophagi within Mongolian sheep, to our knowledge, this is the first report of B. melophagi within ticks collected from Mongolia (Chaorattanakawee et al, 2022). Of note, this Bartonella species has been reported in Dermacentor, Hyalomma, and Rhipicephalus ticks collected from Xinjiang, China (Ni et al, 2021). The detection of B. melophagi in both domestic animals and ticks of Mongolia emphasizes a need for future studies to characterize the disease ecology of this pathogen, including determining the role of ticks in disease transmission and the possibility of transboundary disease movement between Mongolia and China.…”