Smrdel Katja Strašek, Serdt Mojca, Duh Darja, Knap Nataša, Zupanc Tatjana Avšič
Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Zaloška 4, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Parasit Vectors. 2010 Nov 4;3:102. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-3-102.
Ticks act as vectors of many pathogens of domestic animals and humans. Anaplasma phagocytophilum in Europe is transmitted by the ixodid tick vector Ixodes ricinus. A. phagocytophilum causes a disease with diverse clinical signs in various hosts. A great genetic diversity of the groESL operon of A. phagocytophilum has been found in ticks elsewhere. In Slovenia, the variety of the groESL operon was conducted only on deer samples. In this study, the prevalence of infected ticks was estimated and the diversity of A. phagocytophilum was evaluated. On 8 locations in Slovenia, 1924 and 5049 (6973) I. ricinus ticks were collected from vegetation in the years 2005 and 2006, respectively. All three feeding stages of the tick's life cycle were examined. The prevalence of ticks infected with A. phagocytophilum in the year 2005 and in the year 2006 was 0.31% and 0.63%, respectively, and it did not differ considerably between locations. The similarity among the sequences of groESL ranged from 95.6% to 99.8%. They clustered in two genetic lineages along with A. phagocytophilum from Slovenian deer. One sequence formed a separate cluster. According to our study, the prevalence of A. phagocytophilum in ticks is comparable to the findings in other studies in Europe, and it does not vary considerably between locations and tick stages. According to groESL operon analysis, two genetic lineages have been confirmed and one proposed. Further studies on other genes would be useful to obtain more information on genetic diversity of A. phagocytophilum in ticks in Slovenia.
蜱是家畜和人类多种病原体的传播媒介。欧洲的嗜吞噬细胞无形体通过硬蜱属蜱虫媒介蓖麻硬蜱传播。嗜吞噬细胞无形体在不同宿主中会引发具有多种临床症状的疾病。在其他地方的蜱虫中已发现嗜吞噬细胞无形体groESL操纵子存在很大的遗传多样性。在斯洛文尼亚，仅对鹿的样本进行了groESL操纵子的多样性研究。在本研究中，估计了感染蜱虫的患病率，并评估了嗜吞噬细胞无形体的多样性。2005年和2006年，在斯洛文尼亚的8个地点，分别从植被中采集了1924只和5049只（共6973只）蓖麻硬蜱。对蜱虫生命周期的所有三个取食阶段进行了检查。2005年和2006年感染嗜吞噬细胞无形体的蜱虫患病率分别为0.31%和0.63%，不同地点之间患病率差异不大。groESL序列之间的相似性范围为95.6%至99.8%。它们与来自斯洛文尼亚鹿的嗜吞噬细胞无形体一起聚集在两个遗传谱系中。一个序列形成了一个单独的簇。根据我们的研究，蜱虫中嗜吞噬细胞无形体的患病率与欧洲其他研究结果相当，且在不同地点和蜱虫阶段之间变化不大。根据groESL操纵子分析，已确认两个遗传谱系并提出了一个。对其他基因进行进一步研究将有助于获取更多关于斯洛文尼亚蜱虫中嗜吞噬细胞无形体遗传多样性的信息。
