Abstract
Members of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl) complex are etiological agents of Lyme disease (LD), and Borrelia miyamotoi is one of the relapsing fever Borrelia (RFB). Despite the serological evidence of LD in Malaysia, there has been no report from Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Thus, this study aimed to detect and characterize Borrelia in rodents and Ixodes ticks from primary forests and an oil palm (OP) plantation in Sarawak. Borrelia yangtzensis (a member of the Bbsl complex) was detected in 43.8% (14/32) of Ixodes granulatus; most of the positive ticks were from the OP plantation (13/14). Out of 56 rodents, B. yangtzensis was detected in four Rattus spp. from the OP plantation and B. miyamotoi was detected in one rodent, Sundamys muelleri, from the primary forest. Further, the positive samples of B. yangtzensis were randomly selected for multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA). The MLSA results of successfully amplified tick samples revealed a clustering with the sequences isolated from Japan and China. This study is the first evidence of B. miyamotoi, a known human pathogen in Malaysia, and B. yangtzensis, which is circulating in ticks and rodents in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, and presenting a new geographical record of the Borrelia spp.
Highlights
Members of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl) complex are etiological agents of Lyme disease (LD), and Borrelia miyamotoi is one of the relapsing fever Borrelia (RFB) [1]
We identified B. yangtzensis from I. granulatus and Rattus spp. and B. miyamotoi from
This study is the first evidence of B. miyamotoi in Malaysia and B. yangtzensis in Sarawak, Malaysia
Summary
Members of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl) complex are etiological agents of Lyme disease (LD), and Borrelia miyamotoi is one of the relapsing fever Borrelia (RFB) [1]. High incidences of LD and high occurrences of its causative bacterium have been continuously reported since the discovery of LD spirochetes in 1982 in North America and later in 1983 in Europe [4]. In North America, several Bbsl genospecies, including B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (Bbss), B. afzelii, B. garinii, B. californiensis, B. bissettiae, B. kurtenbachii, B. mayonii, and B. spielmanii are known to be responsible for LD [5,6,7,8,9]. LD remains one of the most important infectious diseases in these two continents. This disease is endemic in east Asian countries as there have been reports from China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia [11,12]
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