Two for the price of one: Co-infection with Rickettsia bellii and spotted fever group Rickettsia in Amblyomma (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks recovered from wild birds in Brazil

Abreu, Daniel Paiva Barros de; Peixoto, Maristela Peckle; Luz, Hermes Ribeiro; Zeringóta, Viviane; Santolin, Ísis Daniele Alves Costa; Famadas, Kátia Maria; Faccini, João Luíz Horácio; McIntosh, Douglas

doi:10.1016/j.ttbdis.2019.101266

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Additionally, it was seen that R. amblyommatis -infected A. americanum were less likely to become infected nor maintain an infection of R. parkeri [ 49 ]. These studies show that it is likely that R. amblyommatis is displaying a form of rickettsial exclusion, making coinfection with another rickettsial species less likely [ 55 , 139 ]. These findings suggest that an increase in infection prevalence of R. amblyommatis in ticks might decrease cases of RMSF.…”

Section: Pathogenicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rickettsia amblyommatis in Ticks: A Review of Distribution, Pathogenicity, and Diversity

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rickettsia amblyommatis is a potentially pathogenic species of Rickettsia within the spotted fever group vectored by ticks. While many studies have been published on this species, there is debate over its pathogenicity and the inhibitory role it plays in diagnosing illnesses caused by other spotted fever group Rickettsia species. Many publications have recorded the high infection prevalence of R. amblyommatis in tick populations at a global scale. While this species is rather ubiquitous, questions remain over the epidemiological importance of this possible human pathogen. With tick-borne diseases on the rise, understanding the exact role that R. amblyommatis plays as a pathogen and inhibitor of infection relative to other tick-borne pathogens will help public health efforts. The goal of this review was to compile the known literature on R. amblyommatis, review what we know about its geographic distribution, tick vectors, and pathogenicity, assess relatedness between various international strains from ticks by phylogenetic analysis and draw conclusions regarding future research needed.

show abstract

Section: Pathogenicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rickettsia amblyommatis in Ticks: A Review of Distribution, Pathogenicity, and Diversity

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…R. amblyommatis, as well as R. bellii, was also found in A. longirostre and A. calcaratum recovered from wild birds in Brazil [31,32]. Amblyomma spp.…”

Section: Rickettsia Spp In Birds and Their Ticksmentioning

confidence: 81%

Potential Role of Avian Populations in the Epidemiology of Rickettsia spp. and Babesia spp.

Ebani

Mancianti

2021

Veterinary Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Birds often are carriers of hard and/or soft ticks harboring pathogens of humans and veterinary concern. Migratory avian species, which cover long distance by their flight, may deeply influence the ticks’ distribution worldwide; in particular, they can introduce in a given geographic area new tick species and related tick-borne pathogens. Studies about the detection of tick-borne agents in birds are not numerous, whereas more attention has been turned to the presence of these microorganisms in ticks carried by birds. The present review focused on the role of avian populations in the epidemiology of rickettsioses and babesioses, which represent two severe problems for the health of humans and other mammals.

show abstract

“…Due to overlapping areas of endemicity and shared vectors, rickettsial co-infection has been observed although it is rare, and it poses a potential challenge for molecular diagnostics ( Nogueras et al, 2015 ; Abreu et al, 2019 ; Kim et al, 2019 ). Therefore, replicate samples containing target genetic material at 12 gc/mL, the LoD of the existing qPCR assay for O. tsutsugamushi in the presence of R. prowazekii, were created in a background of human gDNA to simulate co-infected samples (and a control sample containing 0 gc/mL of O. tsutsugamushi gDNA was also included).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A proof of concept for a targeted enrichment approach to the simultaneous detection and characterization of rickettsial pathogens from clinical specimens

Paskey,

Schully,

Voegtly

et al. 2024

Front. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Infection with either Rickettsia prowazekii or Orientia tsutsugamushi is common, yet diagnostic capabilities are limited due to the short window for positive identification. Until now, although targeted enrichment had been applied to increase sensitivity of sequencing-based detection for various microorganisms, it had not been applied to sequencing of R. prowazekii in clinical samples. Additionally, hybridization-based targeted enrichment strategies had only scarcely been applied to qPCR of any pathogens in clinical samples. Therefore, we tested a targeted enrichment technique as a proof of concept and found that it dramatically reduced the limits of detection of these organisms by both qPCR and high throughput sequencing. The enrichment methodology was first tested in contrived clinical samples with known spiked-in concentrations of R. prowazekii and O. tsutsugamushi DNA. This method was also evaluated using clinical samples, resulting in the simultaneous identification and characterization of O. tsutsugamushi directly from clinical specimens taken from sepsis patients. We demonstrated that the targeted enrichment technique is helpful by lowering the limit of detection, not only when applied to sequencing, but also when applied to qPCR, suggesting the technique could be applied more broadly to include other assays and/or microbes for which there are limited diagnostic or detection modalities.

show abstract

Two for the price of one: Co-infection with Rickettsia bellii and spotted fever group Rickettsia in Amblyomma (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks recovered from wild birds in Brazil

Cited by 14 publications

References 47 publications

Rickettsia amblyommatis in Ticks: A Review of Distribution, Pathogenicity, and Diversity

Rickettsia amblyommatis in Ticks: A Review of Distribution, Pathogenicity, and Diversity

Potential Role of Avian Populations in the Epidemiology of Rickettsia spp. and Babesia spp.

A proof of concept for a targeted enrichment approach to the simultaneous detection and characterization of rickettsial pathogens from clinical specimens

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About