Molecular Survey of Tularemia and Plague in Small Mammals From Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Plague and tularemia are zoonoses and their causative bacteria are circulating in certain regions of Iran. This study was conducted to investigate potential disease reservoirs amongst small wildlife species in different regions of Iran.Methods: Rodents, insectivores and hares from 17 different provinces of the country were collected in 2014 and 2015. Samples were taken from the spleens of the animals and Real-time PCR was applied to detect nucleic acid sequences that are specific to Francisella tularensis and Yersinia pestis, respectively.Results: Among 140 collected rodents, 25 distinct species were identified out of which five were the most common: Microtus paradoxus (21% out of 140 rodents), Apodemus witherbyi (12%), Microtus irani (11%), Mus musculus (11%) and Microtus socialis (10%). Seventeen insectivores were collected and identified as Crocidura suaveolens (82%) and C. leucodon (18%). Fifty-one hares were collected and identified as Lepus europaeus (57%), Lepus tolai (14%) and Lepus sp. (29%). Three out of 140 explored rodents (1.91%) were positive for F. tularensis, an A. witherbyi, a Mus musculus domesticus, and a Chionomys nivalis collected from Golestan, Khuzestan and Razavi Khorasan provinces, respectively. Two hares (3.92%) were F. tularensis-positive, a L. europaeus from Khuzestan and a Lepus sp. from the Sistan and Baluchistan province. None of the tested animals were positive for Y. pestis.Conclusion: This is the first report of direct detection of F. tularensis in mammals of Iran and the first-time observation of the agent in a snow vole, C. nivalis worldwide. The results indicate that tularemia is more widespread in Iran than previously reported including the Northeast and Southwestern parts of the country. Future studies should address genetic characterization of F. tularensis positive DNA samples from Iran to achieve molecular subtyping and rule out assay cross-reactivity with near neighbor Francisella species.

Detection of Francisella tularensis in three vole species in Central Europe

“…The average prevalence of F. tularensis in this study was 1.2%, which is comparable to results of studies in wild small mammal populations in Finland and Iran during non‐outbreak situations with prevalences ranging from 0.9% to 1.9% (Mostafavi et al., ; Rossow et al., ). In case of known foci or recent outbreaks of F. tularensis in China, Germany and Spain prevalence may reach 4.8%–20% depending on area and rodent population dynamics (Kaysser et al., ; Rodriguez‐Pastor et al., ; Zhang et al., ).…”

Epidemiological survey of tularemia in Ilam Province, west of Iran

“…Recent seroepidemiological studies, however, have reported significant prevalence of anti- F. tularensis antibodies in the Iranian population [11–13]. In a recent study, F. tularensis has been detected in rabbits and rodents in Iran by molecular methods [14]. On the other hand, Turkey (a neighboring country in northwestern Iran), reported annually 400–2000 human tularemia cases during the 2009–2012 period [8].…”

Simple and Rapid Detection of Yersinia pestis and Francisella tularensis Using Multiplex-PCR: Molecular Detection of Yersinia pestis and Francisella tularensis

“…In fopA genes from F. tularensis were selected as positive controls, cloned into pUC57, and used in real-time PCR (22). In another study, the ISFtu2 and pla plasmid genes were used for the molecular identification of F. tularensis and Y. pestis, respectively (23).…”