title: Bacteria associated with Amblyomma cajennense tick eggs.
abstract: Ticks represent a large group of pathogen vectors that blood feed on a diversity of hosts. In the Americas, the Ixodidae ticks Amblyomma cajennense are responsible for severe impact on livestock and public health. In the present work, we present the isolation and molecular identification of a group of culturable bacteria associated with A. cajennense eggs from females sampled in distinct geographical sites in southeastern Brazil. Additional comparative analysis of the culturable bacteria from Anocentor nitens, Rhipicephalus sanguineus and Ixodes scapularis tick eggs were also performed. 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses identified 17 different bacterial types identified as Serratia marcescens, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Enterobacter spp., Micrococcus luteus, Ochrobactrum anthropi, Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus spp., distributed in 12 phylogroups. Staphylococcus spp., especially S. sciuri, was the most prevalent bacteria associated with A. cajennense eggs, occurring in 65% of the samples and also frequently observed infecting A. nitens eggs. S. maltophilia, S. marcescens and B. cereus occurred infecting eggs derived from specific sampling sites, but in all cases rising almost as pure cultures from infected A. cajennense eggs. The potential role of these bacterial associations is discussed and they possibly represent new targets for biological control strategies of ticks and tick borne diseases.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Genética Molecular de Eucariontes e Simbiontes, Deptartamento de Genética, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Machado-Ferreira
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Genética Molecular de Eucariontes e Simbiontes, Deptartamento de Genética, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: Vinicius Figueiredo
authors.initials: VF
authors.lastname: Vizzoni
authors.affiliation: Bacterial Diseases Branch, Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Piesman
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Referência Nacional em Vetores das Riquetsioses, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: Gilberto Salles
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Gazeta
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Genética Molecular de Eucariontes e Simbiontes, Deptartamento de Genética, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: Carlos Augusto Gomes
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Soares