Abstract
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Area (QTPA) is a plateau with the highest average altitude, located in Northwestern China. There is a risk for interspecies disease transmission, such as spotted fever rickettsioses. However, information on the molecular characteristics of the spotted fever group (SFG) Rickettsia spp. in the area is limited. This study performed screenings, and detected the DNA of human pathogen, SFG Rickettsia spp., with 11.3% (25/222) infection rates in yaks (Bos grunniens). BLASTn analysis revealed that the Rickettsia sequences obtained shared 94.3–100% identity with isolates of Rickettsia spp. from ticks in China. One Rickettsia sequence (MN536161) had 100% nucleotide identity to two R. raoultii isolates from Chinese Homo sapiens, and one isolate from Qinghai Dermacentor silvarum. Meanwhile, another Rickettsia sequence (MN536157) shared 99.1–99.5% identity to one isolate from Dermacentor spp. in China. Furthermore, the phylogenetic analysis of SFG Rickettsia spp. ompA gene revealed that these two sequences obtained from yaks in the present study grouped with the R. slovaca and R. raoultii clades with isolates identified from Dermacentor spp. and Homo sapiens. Our findings showed the first evidence of human pathogen DNA, SFG Rickettsia spp., from animals, in the QTPA.
Highlights
Rickettsioses are a known infectious diseases around the world, caused by obligate intracellular bacteria, the spotted fever group (SFG), Rickettsia [1,2,3]
A total of 222 blood samples were collected from apparently healthy yaks in four counties on the Qinghai plateau, including Wulan (36◦ 190 -37◦ 200 N and 97◦ 010 -99◦ 270 E, n = 28), Qilian (37◦ 250 -39◦ 050 N and 98◦ 050 -101◦ 020 E, n = 30), Haiyan (36◦ 440 -37◦ 390 N and 100◦ 230 -101◦ 200 E, n = 59), and Gangcha (36◦ 580 -38◦ 040 N and 99◦ 200 -100◦ 370 E, n = 105) (Figure 1)
(ompA) gene revealed that the overall infection rate was 11.3% (25/222) for SFG Rickettsia spp. (Table 1)
Summary
Rickettsioses are a known infectious diseases around the world, caused by obligate intracellular bacteria, the spotted fever group (SFG), Rickettsia [1,2,3]. The SFG Rickettsia species has caused diseases with varying clinical presentations in humans, domestic animals, and wildlife, and these diseases are considered an emerging global threat [1,4]. There is a special climate, comprised of a lower average annual temperature and rainfall that fluctuates, a variety of unique livestock are grazed there [25] Among these livestock, the yak (Bos grunniens), which belongs to the bovine species, can survive in extreme environmental conditions, such as cold, harsh, and oxygen-poor [26]. One study confirmed the infection of SFG Rickettsia in ticks from Qinghai province, northwestern China [27], information on the infection and molecular characteristics of these pathogens in humans and yaks in the province are still limited. In this study, we screened yaks in Qinghai plateau for the existence of human pathogens and found that the DNA of Rickettsia was present in yak blood samples
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