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BackgroundThe abundance of tick populations in South Africa represents a probable risk for both animal and human health. Rickettsia and Borrelia are well-known significant agents of emerging human tick-borne infectious diseases throughout the world. Nevertheless, the epidemiology of their infections has been underreported in South Africa, Therefore, the aim of this study was to profile for zoonotic Rickettsia and Borrelia species from ticks infesting domesticated animals in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Morphological and molecular identification techniques were conducted on 1,200 tick samples collected from domestic animals before screening for the target bacterial pathogens. ResultsThe molecular identification of the tick samples was based on the amplification of the 12S rRNA mitochondrial DNA while detection of Rickettsia and Borrelia species were carried out by amplifying fragments of gltA, ompA and ompB genes for Rickettsia and flaB gene for Borrelia spp. Thereafter, the positive ticks, Borrelia and Rickettsia ompB amplicons were sequenced and further analysed. Eight species of ticks belonging to three genera; Rhipicephalus, Amblyomma, and Haemaphysalis were identified. A total of 320 (27%) samples were confirmed positive for Rickettsia out of which 74 (23%) were positive for both ompA and ompB genes. Phylogenetic analysis of ompB revealed a high homology to rickettsial reference strains from GenBank, while there was no positive result for Borrelia. The generated sequences showed 99.1 to 100% homology with R. africae-KX227790 (100 %), R. parkeri - KY113111 (99.8 %), R .peacock (99.3 %) and R. slovaca - KJ675445, JX683122 (99.1 %) representative sequences in GenBank. ConclusionThe findings from this study revealed that ticks collected from domesticated animals were parasitized by Rickettsia species with possible zoonotic potential, which is detrimental to human health if bitten by infected ticks. |
