Bartonella spp. in Bats, Guatemala

Abstract

To better understand the role of bats as reservoirs of Bartonella spp., we estimated Bartonella spp. prevalence and genetic diversity in bats in Guatemala during 2009. We found prevalence of 33% and identified 21 genetic variants of 13 phylogroups. Vampire bat–associated Bartonella spp. may cause undiagnosed illnesses in humans.

Prevalence and Diversity of Bartonella spp. in Bats in Peru

“…The gltA sequences from the Peruvian Bartonella cultures (Table 2), whereas the other 8 variants were identical to some previously described variants from bats in Guatemala. 5 Phylogenetic analyses grouped these variants into 13 phylogroups (Figure 1) with genetic distance of 4.2-20.1% among the groups. Five phylogroups (XXI-XXV) were distinct from all described Bartonella species and previously reported Bartonella genogroups; the other eight groups contained variants that are identical or close to other known variants in bats from Guatemala.…”

“…Novel sequences from the current study were submitted to GenBank and assigned with unique accession numbers. We follow up the study carried out in Guatemala 5 and continue using the Roman numbers (I-XIII and so on) used in the Guatemala study for the same definition of phylogroup identification.…”

“…[31][32][33][34] Several recent studies have reported Bartonella infection in bats from different parts of the world, including England, Kenya, and Guatemala. 5,7,8 Studies from Kenya and Guatemala reported that Bartonella infections are highly prevalent in bats, and the Bartonella strains exhibit high genetic diversity. Nevertheless, Bartonella strains recovered from Kenyan bats exhibited specificity to their bat hosts, whereas those strains obtained from Guatemalan bats showed very little specificity to their bat hosts.…”

“…Multiple studies have highlighted that bats may play an important role in serving as natural reservoirs to numerous pathogens. [2][3][4] Although the knowledge of bats was mostly associated with viruses, several studies also reported the detection of bacterial agents in bats and their ectoparasites [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and have suggested potential for human infection. 14 The genus of Bartonella includes a group of gram-negative bacteria that are highly adapted to intracellular persistence in a wide variety of vertebrates, including rodents, insectivores, carnivores, ungulates, and other mammals.…”

Serological Survey of Rabies Virus Infection among Bats in Brazil

“…Recognized for hosting and transmitting various infectious agents of public health importance, such as Rabies Virus, Coronavirus, Histoplasma, among others, in the last decades studies have pointed out the Chiroptera also as potential hosts of proteobacteria belonging to the genus Rickettsia, Bartonella and Coxiella with the participation of different species of arthropod vectors and amplified by vertebrates in complex zoonotic cycles in which humans may be included accidentally (Bai et al, 2011;Ferreira et al, 2015).…”