title: Ubiquitous bacteria Borrelia crocidurae in Western African ticks Ornithodoros sonrai.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In West Africa, tick-borne relapsing fever is a neglected arthropod-borne infection caused by Borrelia crocidurae transmitted by the argasid tick Ornithodoros sonrai. From an epidemiological point of view, it is of interest to know whether some genotypes of the vector are specialized in carrying certain genotypes of the pathogen.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-five O. sonrai ticks collected in Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco confirmed to be B. crocidurae-infected, were genotyped by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. B. crocidurae was genotyped by Multispacer Sequence Typing. The 35 O. sonrai ticks grouped into 12 genotypes with strong geographical structuration. MST resolved the 35 B. crocidurae isolates into 29 genotypes with pairwise divergence of 0.09 - 1.56 % without strict geographical structuration as genotype ST22 was found in Mali, Senegal and Mauritania. There was no evidence of tick-borrelia specialization as one O. sonrai genotype carried several B. crocidurae genotypes and one B. crocidurae genotype was found in different O. sonrai genotypes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This report illustrates a non-specialized circulation of B. crocidurae borreliae within O. sonrai ticks in West Africa.
authors.affiliation: Aix Marseille, Université, Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes (URMITE), UMR CNRS 7278, IRD 198, INSERM 1095, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Haitham
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Elbir
authors.affiliation: Aix Marseille, Université, Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes (URMITE), UMR CNRS 7278, IRD 198, INSERM 1095, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Aurélien
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: FotsoFotso
authors.affiliation: Aix Marseille, Université, Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes (URMITE), UMR CNRS 7278, IRD 198, INSERM 1095, Marseille, France.|Campus commun UCAD-IRD d'Hann, Dakar, Senegal.
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Diatta
authors.affiliation: MIVEGEC, UMR-CNRS 5290, IRD 224, Parasitologie-Mycologie, CHRU Site Balmès, Montpellier, France.|Campus commun UCAD-IRD d'Hann, Dakar, Senegal.
authors.forename: Jean François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Trape
authors.affiliation: MIVEGEC, UMR-CNRS 5290, IRD 224, Parasitologie-Mycologie, CHRU Site Balmès, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Céline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Arnathau
authors.affiliation: MIVEGEC, UMR-CNRS 5290, IRD 224, Parasitologie-Mycologie, CHRU Site Balmès, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Renaud
authors.affiliation: MIVEGEC, UMR-CNRS 5290, IRD 224, Parasitologie-Mycologie, CHRU Site Balmès, Montpellier, France. patrick.durand@ird.fr.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Durand
mesh_terms: D000354:Africa, Western; D000818:Animals; D001898:Borrelia / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005838:Genotype; D009018:Morocco; D026861:Ornithodoros / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D013045:Species Specificity