Two novel Rickettsia species of soft ticks in North Africa: ‘Candidatus Rickettsia africaseptentrionalis’ and ‘Candidatus Rickettsia mauretanica’

Rickettsia are obligate intracellular bacteria often reported from hard ticks but more rarely from soft ticks. In this study, we detected in Northern Africa two putatively novel Rickettsia species in soft tick species of the Ornithodoros erraticus complex: Ornithodoros occidentalis from Morocco, Orn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ticks and tick-borne diseases 2020-05, Vol.11 (3), p.101376-101376, Article 101376
Main Authors: Buysse, Marie, Duron, Olivier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algeria
Animals
Bacterial Proteins
Bacteriology
Biodiversity
Ecology, environment
Life Sciences
Microbiology and Parasitology
Morocco
North Africa
Nymph - growth & development
Nymph - microbiology
Ornithodoros
Ornithodoros - growth & development
Ornithodoros - microbiology
Rickettsia
Rickettsia - classification
Rickettsia - genetics
Rickettsia - isolation & purification
RNA, Bacterial - analysis
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - analysis
Soft ticks
Symbiosis
Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy
Tunisia
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Summary:Rickettsia are obligate intracellular bacteria often reported from hard ticks but more rarely from soft ticks. In this study, we detected in Northern Africa two putatively novel Rickettsia species in soft tick species of the Ornithodoros erraticus complex: Ornithodoros occidentalis from Morocco, Ornithodoros erraticus from Algeria and Ornithodoros normandi from Tunisia. We characterized these two novel Rickettsia species on the basis of comparative DNA sequence analyses and phylogenetics of four genes (gltA, 16S rRNA, coxA and ompB). These Rickettsia, provisionally named ‘Candidatus Rickettsia africaseptentrionalis’ and ‘Candidatus Rickettsia mauretanica’, differed in nucleotide sequence from those of other Rickettsia species by 0.38–21.43 % depending on the gene examined. Phylogenetics further showed that the two novel Rickettsia species are closely related to each other and represent sister taxa to R. hoogstraalii, R. felis and R. asembonensis within the transitional Rickettsia group. While Ornithodoros host species of ‘Candidatus Rickettsia africaseptentrionalis’ and ‘Candidatus Rickettsia mauretanica’ are among the most common soft ticks to bite humans, their pathogenicity remains to be investigated.
ISSN:1877-959X
1877-9603
DOI:10.1016/j.ttbdis.2020.101376