title: Prevalence of Lyme borrelia in Ixodes persulcatus ticks from an area with a confirmed case of Lyme disease.
abstract: In this study, the prevalence of Borrelia infections in Ixodes ticks from a site in Hokkaido, Japan, with confirmed cases of Lyme disease was determined by a PCR method capable of detecting and differentiating between strains of pathogenic Borrelia, with particular emphasis on Borrelia garinii (B. garinii) and Borrelia afzelli (B. afzelli), using tick-derived DNA extracts as template. A total of 338 ticks, inclusive of 284 Ixodes persulcatus (I. persulcatus), were collected by flagging vegetation in mid-spring. Ninety-eight (34.5%) of I. persulcatus tested positive for Borrelia species DNA, whereas the overall prevalence of Borrelia species in Ixodes ovatus and Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks was 19.5 and 7.7%, respectively. PCR-RFLP and sequence analysis of Borrelia rrf(5S)-rrl(23S) intergenic spacer DNA amplicons indicated that they originated from three different Borrelia species namely, B. garinii, B. afzelii and B. japonica. Among the I. persulcatus species, which is a known vector of human borreliosis, 86 were mono-infected with B. garinii, 2 ticks were mono-infected with B. afzelii and whereas 12 ticks had dual infections. Most significant, 11 of the I. persulcatus ticks were coinfected with Anaplasma phagocytophilum and B. garinii. The difference between the number of obtained and expected co-infections was significant (χ(2)=4.32, P=0.038).
authors.affiliation: Department of Disease Control, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Murase
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Konnai
authors.forename: Naftaly
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Githaka
authors.forename: Arata
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hidano
authors.forename: Kyle
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Takuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Ai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Takano
authors.forename: Shuji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kawabata
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsubota
authors.forename: Shiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murata
authors.forename: Kazuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ohashi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001898:Borrelia / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018884:Ixodes / Q000382:microbiology*; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008193:Lyme Disease / Q000382:microbiology*; D008297:Male