从自然感染的野生啮齿动物的耳部组织和干血斑中检测 tick-borne encephalitis virus。
Detection of tick-borne encephalitis virus in ear tissue and dried blood spots from naturally infected wild rodents.
机构信息
Laboratory of Entomology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Laboratory for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology, National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM), Antonie Van Leeuwenhoeklaan 9, P.O. Box 1, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
出版信息
Parasit Vectors. 2023 Mar 16;16(1):103. doi: 10.1186/s13071-023-05717-0.
BACKGROUND
Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) can cause severe neurological disease in humans. Its geographical distribution is expanding in Western Europe with unresolved causes and spatial patterns, necessitating enhanced surveillance. Monitoring the virus in the environment is complicated, as it usually relies on destructive sampling of small rodents to test organs for TBEV, which in addition to ethical considerations also raises issues for long-term monitoring or longitudinal studies. Moreover, even when the virus is not detected in the blood or organs of the rodent, TBEV can still be transmitted from an infected tick to uninfected ticks feeding nearby. This is due to the ability of TBEV to replicate and migrate locally within the epidermis of small mammals, including those that do not appear to have systemic infection. This suggests that the virus may be detectable in skin biopsies, which has been confirmed in experimentally infected laboratory rodents, but it remains unknown if this sample type may be a viable alternative to destructively obtained samples in the monitoring of natural TBEV infection. Here we test ear tissue and dried blood spot (DBS) samples from rodents to determine whether TBEV-RNA can be detected in biological samples obtained non-destructively.
METHODS
Rodents were live-trapped and sampled at three woodland areas in The Netherlands where presence of TBEV has previously been recorded. Ear tissue (n = 79) and DBSs (n = 112) were collected from a total of 117 individuals and were tested for TBEV-RNA by real-time RT-PCR.
RESULTS
TBEV-RNA was detected in five rodents (4.3% of tested individuals), all of which had a TBEV-positive ear sample, while only two out of four of these individuals (for which a DBS was available) had a positive DBS. This equated to 6.3% of ear samples and 1.8% of DBSs testing positive for TBEV-RNA.
CONCLUSIONS
We provide the first evidence to our knowledge that TBEV-RNA can be detected in samples obtained non-destructively from naturally infected wild rodents, providing a viable sampling alternative suitable for longitudinal surveillance of the virus.
背景
蜱传脑炎病毒（TBEV）可导致人类罹患严重的神经疾病。其地理分布在西欧不断扩大，但其原因和空间模式尚未得到解决，因此需要加强监测。由于监测环境中的病毒通常依赖于对小型啮齿动物进行破坏性采样以检测 TBEV 器官，因此除了伦理问题外，这也对长期监测或纵向研究提出了挑战。此外，即使啮齿动物的血液或器官中未检测到病毒，受感染的蜱也可能将 TBEV 传播给附近未感染的蜱。这是因为 TBEV 能够在包括那些似乎没有全身感染的小型哺乳动物的表皮内局部复制和迁移。这表明病毒可能可在皮肤活检中检测到，这在实验感染的实验室啮齿动物中已得到证实，但尚不清楚这种样本类型是否可替代破坏性获得的样本用于监测自然 TBEV 感染。在这里，我们测试了啮齿动物的耳部组织和干血斑（DBS）样本，以确定是否可以在非破坏性获得的生物样本中检测到 TBEV-RNA。
方法
在荷兰的三个林地地区使用活捕法对啮齿动物进行采样，这些地区先前曾记录过 TBEV 的存在。从总共 117 只个体中收集了耳部组织（n=79）和 DBS（n=112），并通过实时 RT-PCR 检测 TBEV-RNA。
结果
在五只啮齿动物（受检个体的 4.3%）中检测到了 TBEV-RNA，所有这些啮齿动物的耳部样本均为 TBEV 阳性，而在这四只个体中（有 DBS 可用的个体）仅有两只 DBS 为阳性。这相当于耳部样本的 6.3%和 DBS 的 1.8%检测到 TBEV-RNA 阳性。
结论
我们首次提供了已知的证据，表明 TBEV-RNA 可在从自然感染的野生啮齿动物中非破坏性获得的样本中检测到，为病毒的纵向监测提供了可行的采样替代方法。
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