Adelabu Olusesan Adeyemi, Iweriebor Benson Chuks, Okoh Anthony Ifeanyi, Obi Larry Chikwelu
SAMRC Microbial Water Quality Monitoring Centre, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology Research Group (AEMREG), Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa.
Pathogens. 2020 Dec 18;9(12):1061. doi: 10.3390/pathogens9121061.
Importation of tick-infected animals and the uncontrollable migration of birds and wild animals across borders can lead to geographical expansion and redistribution of ticks and pathogen vectors, thus leading to the emergence and re-emergence of tick-borne diseases in humans and animals. Comparatively, little is known about the occurrence of piroplasms in ixodid ticks in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, thus necessitating this study, which is aimed at detecting piroplasms ( and ) from feeding tick samples collected from cattle, sheep, and goats in selected sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. A total of 1200 feeding ixodid ticks collected from farm animals at selected homesteads were first subjected to molecular identification using mitochondrial 12S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene by PCR and were further tested for the presence of piroplasms through amplification of the 18S rRNA gene via nested-PCR followed by sequencing of the PCR products. The results indicated that 853 (71.1%) corresponded to the genus , 335 (27.9%) corresponded to genus , and 12 (1%) corresponded to genus . and were the most common identified ticks from this study. The 18S rRNA nested-PCR revealed that 44 (3.7%) samples were confirmed positive for . A homology search for the generated sequences revealed a high percentage identity of 98-98.9% similarity to , , and in the GenBank. Based on the results obtained herein, we conclude that there is a big diversity of species; therefore, we suggest that this research should cover more geographical areas in order to reveal the true prevalence of this pathogen in the studied area because this will be a great step in the possible prevention of an outbreak that could have devastating effects on livestock production and human health in both the studied areas and South Africa at large.
蜱感染动物的输入以及鸟类和野生动物不受控制的跨境迁徙会导致蜱和病原体载体在地理上的扩张和重新分布，从而导致人和动物中蜱传疾病的出现和再次出现。相比之下，人们对南非东开普省硬蜱中梨形虫的发生情况了解较少，因此有必要开展本研究，旨在从南非东开普省选定地点采集的牛、羊和山羊身上的吸血蜱样本中检测梨形虫（和）。首先，对从选定家园的农场动物身上采集的1200只吸血硬蜱进行分子鉴定，采用聚合酶链反应（PCR）扩增线粒体12S核糖体RNA（rRNA）基因，然后通过巢式PCR扩增18S rRNA基因并对PCR产物进行测序，进一步检测梨形虫的存在。结果表明，853只（71.1%）属于属，335只（27.9%）属于属，12只（1%）属于属。和是本研究中最常见的已鉴定蜱种。18S rRNA巢式PCR显示，44份（3.7%）样本被确认为阳性。对生成序列的同源性搜索显示，与GenBank中的、和有98 - 98.9%的高百分比同一性。基于本文获得的结果，我们得出结论，梨形虫物种具有很大的多样性；因此，我们建议本研究应涵盖更多地理区域，以揭示该病原体在研究区域的真实流行情况，因为这将是朝着预防可能对研究区域和整个南非的牲畜生产和人类健康产生毁灭性影响的疫情迈出的重要一步。
