Abstract
Rickettsia raoultii is a tick-borne pathogen that infects humans; however, the vertebrate hosts of this pathogen have not been clearly defined. Our molecular examination of Rickettsia spp. infecting mammals and ticks in China, identified the gltA, ompA, and 17KD gene sequences of R. raoultii in horses and their ticks. This indicates a role of horses in R. raoultii epidemiology.
Highlights
Tick-borne rickettsioses are recognized as emerging vector-borne infections, infecting both human and animal hosts worldwide
The findings from this study provide evidence that Rickettsia species are in horses and sympatric ticks and that these hosts play a role in the circulation of the spotted fever group of rickettsiae
A phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the gltA and outer membrane protein A-encoding gene (ompA) sequences identified in this study and other sequences from the GenBank database using the neighbor-joining method. This revealed that the test samples from a horse, questing tick and an engorged adult tick clustered with other R. raoultii strains and were most closely related to R. raoultii strain MDJ1, which had been isolated from a patient in Mudanjiang, China (Figure 1)
Summary
Tick-borne rickettsioses are recognized as emerging vector-borne infections, infecting both human and animal hosts worldwide. Rickettsia raoultii has been detected in a variety of ticks collected from dogs, cattle, and wildlife (Klitgaard et al, 2017; Chisu et al, 2018; Seo et al, 2020). Horses are considered the most suitable domestic agent for Brazilian spotted fever in some areas (Sangioni et al, 2005), which raises the question of whether horses may play a role in the disease epidemiology of R. raoultii.
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