Human Spotted Fever Group <i>Rickettsia</i> Infecting Yaks (<i>Bos grunniens</i>) in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Area
Yingna Jian,
Jixu Li,
Paul Franck Adjou Moumouni,
Xueyong Zhang,
Maria Agnes Tumwebaze,
Geping Wang,
Qigang Cai,
Xiuping Li,
Guanghua Wang,
Mingming Liu,
Yongchang Li,
Liqing Ma,
Xuenan Xuan
Affiliations
Yingna Jian
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Jixu Li
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
Paul Franck Adjou Moumouni
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
Xueyong Zhang
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Maria Agnes Tumwebaze
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
Geping Wang
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Qigang Cai
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Xiuping Li
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Guanghua Wang
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Mingming Liu
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
Yongchang Li
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
Liqing Ma
Qinghai Academy of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Centre for Biomedicine and Infectious Diseases, Qinghai University, State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Xining 810016, China
Xuenan Xuan
National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan
The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Area (QTPA) is a plateau with the highest average altitude, located in Northwestern China. There is a risk for interspecies disease transmission, such as spotted fever rickettsioses. However, information on the molecular characteristics of the spotted fever group (SFG) Rickettsia spp. in the area is limited. This study performed screenings, and detected the DNA of human pathogen, SFG Rickettsia spp., with 11.3% (25/222) infection rates in yaks (Bos grunniens). BLASTn analysis revealed that the Rickettsia sequences obtained shared 94.3–100% identity with isolates of Rickettsia spp. from ticks in China. One Rickettsia sequence (MN536161) had 100% nucleotide identity to two R. raoultii isolates from Chinese Homo sapiens, and one isolate from Qinghai Dermacentor silvarum. Meanwhile, another Rickettsia sequence (MN536157) shared 99.1–99.5% identity to one isolate from Dermacentor spp. in China. Furthermore, the phylogenetic analysis of SFG Rickettsia spp. ompA gene revealed that these two sequences obtained from yaks in the present study grouped with the R. slovaca and R. raoultii clades with isolates identified from Dermacentor spp. and Homo sapiens. Our findings showed the first evidence of human pathogen DNA, SFG Rickettsia spp., from animals, in the QTPA.
