MOLECULAR SURVEY OF IN JAPANESE RACCOON DOGS ().

Wild carnivores serve as reservoirs of several zoonotic species such as , subsp. , and . The raccoon dog () is the most common native carnivore in Japan, but epidemiologic studies of infections have not been performed in this animal species yet. Here, we report a molecular survey of prevalence in 619 wild raccoon dogs captured from 2009 to 2017 in western Japan. DNA was detected in 7.1% (44/619) of the raccoon dogs examined by PCR targeting the and genes. All of the sequences obtained were identical in each of the genes. The prevalence of by sex of the animals was 6.1% (21/344) in male and 8.4% (23/275) in female. The prevalence by year varied from 2% (1/45) in 2011 to 14% (4/28) in 2016. The prevalence (7.9%) of in the raccoon dogs with sarcoptic mange tended to be higher than the prevalence (4.0%) in the animals without the infestation of mites, although the differences were not significant. Sequence analysis indicated that Japanese raccoon dogs in the area examined were infected with carrying identical sequences in the and genes. In addition, the raccoon dog strain had few sequence variations in both genes compared to other known strains detected in other parts of the world.