Abstract
Chlamydia spp. and Chlamydia-like organisms are able to infect vertebrates such as mammals, reptiles and birds, but also arthropods and protozoans. Since they have been detected in bats and bat feces, we expected Chlamydiae bacteria to also be present in the mite Spinturnix myoti, an ectoparasite of mouse-eared bats (Myotis spp.). The prevalence of Chlamydiales in 88 S. myoti was 57.95% and significantly depended on bat host species. In addition, the prevalence was significantly different between bat species living in sympatry or in allopatry. While there was uninterpretable sequencing for 16 samples, eight showed best BLAST hit identities lower than 92.5% and thus corresponded to new family-level lineages according to the established taxonomy cut-off. The four remaining sequences exhibited best BLAST hit identities ranging from 94.2 to 97.4% and were taxonomically assigned to three different family-level lineages, with two of them belonging to the Parachlamydiaceae, one to the Simkaniaceae, and one to the Chlamydiaceae. These results highlighted for the first time the presence of Chlamydia-like organisms and the possible zoonotic origin of Chlamydia sp. in S. myoti ectoparasites of bats, and therefore suggest that these ectoparasites may play a role in maintaining and/or transmitting members of the Chlamydiae phylum within Myotis spp. bat populations. Our results further highlight that the wide diversity of bacteria belonging to the Chlamydiae phylum is largely underestimated.
Highlights
Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria known to cause medically and economically important infectious diseases
The Chlamydiae prevalence in S. myoti significantly varied between the host bat species with 20% (95% confidence intervals (CI); 8.1–41.6%) Myotis blythii, 64.5% M. myotis, and 73% M. punicus being positive for Chlamydiae (v2 = 16.2, df = 2, p < 0.001) (Fig. 1)
Similar results were found for the S. myoti collected on M. blythii, with no difference in prevalence between mites collected in Switzerland and in Italy (v2 = 0.48, df = 1, p = 0.49)
Summary
Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria known to cause medically and economically important infectious diseases. Chlamydiaceae includes two well-known human pathogens, Chlamydia trachomatis and C. pneumoniae, and includes other animal pathogens responsible for zoonotic infections such as C. psittaci and C. abortus [5, 30], the causative agents of psittacosis and sheep abortion, respectively. While members of the Chlamydiaceae family are known to be human and/or animal pathogens and are highly studied, the role of bacteria belonging to the eight other family-level lineages ( called Chlamydia-like organisms (CLOs)) requires further investigations. A member of the Waddliaceae family, has recently been associated with miscarriage and tubal infertility [3, 4, 60], while Simkania negevensis, Rhabdochlamydia spp. and Parachlamydia spp. have been associated with respiratory infections [15, 24, 27, 36, 39]
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