Raele Donato Antonio, Galante Domenico, Pugliese Nicola, De Simone Esther, Cafiero Maria Assunta
Unit of Medical Entomology, Department of Virology, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Puglia e della Basilicata, Via Manfredonia, 20-71121 Foggia, Italy.
Unit of Medical Entomology, Department of Virology, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Puglia e della Basilicata, Via Manfredonia, 20-71121 Foggia, Italy.
Microbes Infect. 2015 Nov-Dec;17(11-12):799-805. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2015.09.011. Epub 2015 Sep 30.
Several different ticks have been reported to harbor microbes related to Coxiella burnetii, the agent of the Q fever. Rhipicephalus bursa is an important vector of tick-borne diseases in livestock in Mediterranean area; it is also abundant in ovi-caprine farms with C. burnetii infection, in Southern Italy. 60 females of Rh. bursa (15 pools) and 40 their eggs (2 pools) were screened for C. burnetii by a conventional PCR targeting the insertion sequence IS1111 and by Loop mediated isothermal amplification assay (LAMP) targeting com1 gene. One of 15 tick pools (1/15) and both egg pools (2/2) were found positive by LAMP assay and negative by PCR targeting IS1111 gene. 16S rRNA gene was amplified by PCR from the LAMP-positive pools, amplicons were sequenced and found 95% similar to the corresponding sequences from C. burnetii. This let us to hypothesize the presence of a new Coxiella-like endosymbiont associated with Rh. bursa which could be vertically transmitted, described here for the first time. The lack of detection of IS1111 in Coxiella endosymbiont of Rh. bursa could be related to the possible absence of the Pathogenicity island of C. burnetii, to which IS1111s are associated.
据报道，几种不同的蜱虫携带着与Q热病原体伯氏考克斯体相关的微生物。柏氏扇头蜱是地中海地区家畜蜱传疾病的重要传播媒介；在意大利南部受伯氏考克斯体感染的羊养殖场中也大量存在。通过针对插入序列IS1111的常规PCR和针对com1基因的环介导等温扩增试验（LAMP），对60只柏氏扇头蜱雌蜱（15组）及其40枚卵（2组）进行了伯氏考克斯体筛查。LAMP试验发现15组蜱虫中有1组（1/15）呈阳性，2组卵均呈阳性（2/2），而针对IS1111基因的PCR检测呈阴性。通过PCR从LAMP阳性组中扩增出16S rRNA基因，对扩增产物进行测序，发现与伯氏考克斯体的相应序列相似度为95%。这使我们推测存在一种与柏氏扇头蜱相关的新型类考克斯体共生菌，它可能通过垂直传播，本文首次对此进行描述。在柏氏扇头蜱的考克斯体共生菌中未检测到IS1111，这可能与伯氏考克斯体致病岛的可能缺失有关，IS1111与该致病岛相关。
