Prevalence of common tick-borne pathogens in white-tailed deer and coyotes in south Texas.

Determining which wildlife hosts are involved in the enzootic cycles of tick-borne diseases (TBD) enables enhanced surveillance and risk assessment of potential transmission to humans and domestic species. Currently, there is limited data to indicate which tick-borne pathogens (TBP) can infect coyotes. Additionally, limited surveillance data for white-tailed deer (WTD) in south Texas is available. The purpose of this study was to detect current infections of common TBP in coyotes and WTD in south Texas, which represents a transboundary region and common site for animal migrations across the U.S.-Mexico border. A patent pending real-time PCR assay, the TickPath layerplex test, was used to screen whole-blood samples for species from and genera. Conventional PCR and subsequent sequencing of positive samples confirmed the pathogen species. Of 122 coyote samples, 11/122 (9.0%) were positive for and 1/122 (0.8%) was positive for Of 245 WTD samples, 1/245 (0.4%) was positive for , 4/245 (1.6%) were positive for , and 18/245 (7.3%) were positive for . All positive samples from both species, except for one coyote, were collected from counties located in south Texas along the U.S.Mexico border. One coyote positive for originated from a county in northern Texas. The results from this study depicts the first known molecular detection of in a coyote, and demonstrates that coyotes and WTDs can potentially serve as sentinels for several zoonotic TBD as well as TBD that affect domestic animals.