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Detection of “Candidatus Rickettsia wissemanii” in ticks parasitizing bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) in the northern Brazilian Amazon

  • Arthropods and Medical Entomology - Short Communication
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Abstract

A total of 482 bats representing 32 species and two families were captured in the Amazon forests of the Amapá state in northern Brazil. Nineteen Artibeus planirostris bats (3.9 %) were infested with 160 ticks, all identified as Ornithodoros hasei. Three pools of larvae were screened for rickettsial DNA via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting three rickettsial genes: gltA, ompA and htrA. Only one of them yielded an amplicons of the expected size for all three molecular assays. Comparisons of the obtained sequences including a phylogenetic analysis confirmed the occurrence of “Candidatus Rickettsia wissemanii” in Brazil.

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Funding

This work received financial support from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and Coordination Office for Improvement of Higher-Education Personnel (CAPES). WDC is supported by a post-doctoral scholarship by CAPES—PNPD. HRL and SML were funded by FAPESP (grant nos. 2017/00117-6 and 2018/02521-1, respectively).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia do RENORBIO, Ponto Focal Maranhão, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, São Luís, Brazil

    Hermes R. Luz

  2. Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva e Saúde Animal, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Hermes R. Luz, Sebastián Muñoz-Leal, Igor C. L. Acosta & Marcelo B. Labruna

  3. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade Tropical, Universidade Federal do Amapá, Macapá, Brazil

    William D. de Carvalho, José J. Toledo & Renato Hilário

  4. Laboratório de Mamíferos, Instituto de Pesquisas Científicas e Tecnológicas do Estado do Amapá (IEPA), Macapá, Brazil

    Isaí J. Castro

  5. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Bruna S. Xavier

  6. Departamento de Parasitologia Animal, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, RJ, Brazil

    João Luiz H. Faccini

Authors
  1. Hermes R. Luz
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  2. Sebastián Muñoz-Leal
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  3. William D. de Carvalho
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  4. Isaí J. Castro
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  5. Bruna S. Xavier
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  6. José J. Toledo
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  7. Renato Hilário
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  8. Igor C. L. Acosta
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  9. João Luiz H. Faccini
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  10. Marcelo B. Labruna
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hermes R. Luz.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was evaluated and approved by the Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Amapá (process no. 006/201625) and conducted with the permission of Brazilian Institute of the Environment—IBAMA (process no. 55867-1).

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Section Editor: Charlotte Oskam

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Luz, H.R., Muñoz-Leal, S., de Carvalho, W.D. et al. Detection of “Candidatus Rickettsia wissemanii” in ticks parasitizing bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Parasitol Res 118, 3185–3189 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-019-06442-3

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