Parasites, Hosts and Diseases

The Korea Society for Parasitology and Tropical Medicine (대한기생충학·열대의학회)
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Tick-Borne Pathogens in Ixodid Ticks from Poyang Lake Region, Southeastern China

  • Zheng, Wei Qing (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Xuan, Xue Nan (National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine) ;
  • Fu, Ren Long (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Tao, Hui Ying (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Liu, Yang Qing (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Liu, Xiao Qing (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Li, Dong Mei (State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Ma, Hong Mei (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention) ;
  • Chen, Hai Ying (Nanchang Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
  • Received : 2018.08.30
  • Accepted : 2018.10.27
  • Published : 2018.12.31
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Abstract

Ticks are the vectors of various pathogens, threatening human health and animal production across the globe. Here, for the first time we detected Ricketssia spp., Borrelia spp. and protozoan in ticks from Poyang Lake region in Jiangxi Province of eastern China. In 3 habitat categories and on 12 host species, 311 ticks from 11 species were collected. Haemaphysalis longicornis was the predominant species, accounting for 55.63%, followed by Rhipicephalus microplus, Haemaphysalis flava and Ixodes granulatus. Of the collected ticks, 7.07% were positive for tick-borne pathogens, and H. longicornis and H. flava were found to be co-infected with Ricketssia spp. and protozoan. H. flava was the most detected positive for tick-borne pathogens, whereas H. longicornis had the lowest infection rate, and the difference in infection rates between tick species was significant (${\chi}^2=61.24$, P<0.001). Furthermore, adult ticks demonstrated remarkably greater infection rate than immature ticks (${\chi}^2=10.12$, P=0.018), meanwhile ticks on Erinaceidae showed significantly higher positivity than ticks collected on other host species (${\chi}^2=108.44$, P<0.001). Genetic fragment sequencing and analyses showed at least 4 pathogen species presence in ticks, namely Borrelia yangtzensis, Rickettsia slovaca or Rickettsia raoultii related genospecies, Babesia vogeli and Hepatozoon canis or Hepatozoon felis related genospecies. The finding indicates that the abundant ticks can carry diverse pathogens in Poyang Lake region, and pathogen infection is highly related to species, vertebrate hosts and life stages of ticks.

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