Prevalence and Genetic Diversity of Bartonella spp. in Small Mammals from Southeastern Asia

Abstract

f Among 1,341 blood samples from rodents that were trapped in Southeast Asia between 2008 and 2010, we found a prevalence of Bartonella infection ranging from 9.6 to 11.9%. Bartonella species identified (143 isolates) included B. elizabethae, B. coopersplainsensis, B. phoceensis, B. queenslandensis, B. rattimassiliensis, B. tribocorum, and three new putative Bartonella species. Bartonella species are intracellular parasites of erythrocytes and endothelial cells of various mammalian host species, such as humans and wild and domestic animals, including rodents (5,7,14). Bartonella infections in rodents have been reported worldwide (2,4,8,10,11,16). The objectives of this study were to investigate the prevalence and to evaluate the genetic diversity of Bartonella infections from a large series of blood samples from rodents and shrews that were trapped from two sites in Cambodia, two sites in Lao PDR, and three sites in Thailand (Fig. 1). Pictures, habitat descriptions, and the coordinates of the trap lines are available at the CERoPath project website (www.ceropath.org).Blood samples were collected by cardiocentesis and stored at Ϫ80°C before shipment on dry ice to the URMITE CNRS-IRD UMR laboratory in Marseille, France. Overall, DNA from blood samples (n ϭ 1,341) was extracted and screened using real-time PCR that targeted the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer region (ITS), as previously described (12). Blood samples were also tested by culture method on Columbia agar supplemented with 5% sheep blood and incubated at 37°C in 5% CO 2 for up to 4 weeks. A single colony for each positive sample was picked, its DNA was extracted, and the species was identified by using standard PCR amplification and a sequencing analysis targeting two housekeeping genes (gltA and rpoB) and the ITS fragment (9, 13). The sequence data were aligned and compared with the sequences of the Bartonella reference strains, which were retrieved from GenBank (see Table S1 in the supplemental material) and analyzed using Clustal W. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted on concatenated gltA and rpoB sequences by using the MEGA 5 software and maximum parsimony method. The prevalence of Bartonella infections in the three countries were analyze using R statistical software.Overall, of the trapped animals, 19 species of rodents and 2 species of shrews were identified. Bartonella spp. were isolated from 143 of the 1,341 (10.7%) blood samples. The highest prevalence of Bartonella spp. was found in Lao PDR (11.9%), followed by Thailand (11%) and Cambodia (9.6%) ( Table 1). However, these differences were not statistically significant (chi-square test, all P values were Ͼ0.05). The prevalence of Bartonella infection varied among host species, from 1% for Maxomys surifer to 75% for Mus spp. (Table 1). Among the positive animals, species of the genus Rattus displayed the highest prevalence of Bartonella infection, followed by rodents of the genera Mus and Berylmys. Of the total 143 isolates from 140 animal blood samples, 3 samples contained multiple Bartonella s...

Rickettsia and Bartonella Species in Fleas from Reunion Island

“…12 The pathogenicity of B. queenslandensis, which has been isolated from small mammals from several Asian countries and detected in X. cheopis fleas, is unknown. 13 The analysis of the genome of Bartonella sp. 1.1C, isolated from R. norvegicus, revealed that this species belongs to lineage 3, which contains some zoonotic pathogens.…”

Parasite diversity of disease-bearing rodents of Southeast Asia: habitat determinants and effects on sexual size dimorphism and life-traits

“…For microparasites, rodent species were investigated for hantaviruses, protists (Toxoplasma gondii, Trypanosoma levisi, and Trypanosoma levansii), Leptospira species (L. borgpetersenii; L. interrogans; L. kirshneri and L. wakefefiedae) and Bartonella sp.(B. coopersplainsensi; B. elizabethae; B. queenslandensis; B. rattimassiliensis; B.tribocorum; B. musii and B. phoceensis); (Jittapalapong et al, 2011;Jiyipong et al, 2012;Cosson et al, 2014;Pumhom et al, 2014Pumhom et al, , 2015. Table 1 summarizes the helminth species richness and microparasite species richness obtained from these published studies.…”

The Bacteriome of Bat Flies (Nycteribiidae) from the Malagasy Region: a Community Shaped by Host Ecology, Bacterial Transmission Mode, and Host-Vector Specificity

“…These bacterial genera offer contrasting model systems for investigating the biotic factors driving the structures of associated microbial communities. Bartonella species are parasitic intracellular bacteria that infect vertebrate erythrocytes, and many species are considered to be zoonotic (16) and are linked to disease in humans (17)(18)(19)(20), including the recently identified bat-associated Bartonella mayotimonensis (21). Nycteribiids are known to host a wide variety of Bartonella spp.…”