New Genotypes of Coxiella burnetii Circulating in Brazil and Argentina.

Mateus De Souza Ribeiro Mioni,Sâmea Fernandes Joaquim,Renan Denadai,Wanderson Sirley Reis Teixeira,Jane Megid,Karim Sidi-Boumedine,Felipe Morales Dalanezi,Marcelo Bahia Labruna

doi:10.3390/pathogens9010030

Abstract

Coxiella burnetii, the zoonotic agent of Q fever, has a worldwide distribution. Despite the vast information about the circulating genotypes in Europe and North America, there is a lack of data regarding C. burnetii strains in South America. Here, we show the presence of novel multispacer sequence typing (MST) genotypes of C. burnetii in two clusters detected in Brazil and Argentina that seem to be distant in parenthood. Argentinian strains isolated from a tick belongs to a new phylogenetic branch of C. burnetii, and the Brazilians strains may be related to MST 20 and 61. Multilocus variable number tandem repeats analysis (MLVA) typing provided a deeper resolution that may be related to host clusters of bovines, caprine, ovine, and ticks. Our results corroborate with the reports of geotypes of C. burnetii. Thus, we highlight the need for more genotyping studies to understand the genetic diversity of C. burnetii in South America and to confirm the hypothesis of host-related genotypes. We also emphasize the importance of virulence studies for a better understanding of Q fever in the region, which may help in surveillance and disease prevention programs.

Highlights

Coxiella burnetii is the causative agent of Q fever in humans and coxiellosis in animals [1,2], a disease that has a worldwide distribution, except for New Zealand [1,3]
A complete multispacer sequence typing (MST) pattern was only possible to observe for the C. burnetii strain At12, probably due to its higher DNA concentration, once it was the only sample derived from the Vero cell culture
This paper describes the genetic diversity of C. burnetii from Brazil and Argentina using MST

Summary

Introduction

Coxiella burnetii is the causative agent of Q fever in humans and coxiellosis in animals [1,2], a disease that has a worldwide distribution, except for New Zealand [1,3]. Q fever is mainly asymptomatic, but acute, chronic, and more severe forms [2] are possible outcomes of the disease. The main reservoirs of the disease for humans are domestic ruminants, where the infection is associated with late abortion and reproductive disorders. The importance of Q fever, in terms of public health, increased after the outbreak in the Netherlands, where more than 4000 people became ill and 50,000 animals were slaughtered to control the epidemics [5,6]. We reported the presence of bacteria in Brazil by qPCR in raw Pathogens 2020, 9, 30; doi:10.3390/pathogens9010030 www.mdpi.com/journal/pathogens

Methods

Results

Conclusion