New World relapsing fever Borrelia found in Ornithodoros porcinus ticks in central Tanzania.
Ticks were collected from 8 houses in Mvumi Mission village, near Dodoma, Tanzania. All ticks were examined for Borrelia infestation by flagellin gene-based nested polymerase chain reaction. All houses were highly infested with ticks, and all ticks collected were of the Ornithodoros porcinus species. Fifty-one out of 120 ticks were infected with spirochetes, and a flagellin gene sequence comparison showed that most of the spirochetes belonged to Borrelia duttonii, which is the causative agent of tick-borne relapsing fever in East Africa. The rest of the spirochetes were quite different from B. duttonii and instead resembled the New World tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences also supported the interpretation that the spirochete was a Borrelia species distinct from previously described members of the genus.
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fukuyama University, Fukuyama, Hiroshima 729-0292, Japan.
Harumi
H
Mitani
Alison
A
Talbert
Masahito
M
Fukunaga
D000818:Animals; D001898:Borrelia / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005408:Flagellin / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D026861:Ornithodoros / Q000382:microbiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D012061:Relapsing Fever / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013636:Tanzania
D005408:Flagellin; C416532:flaB flagellin