Rickettsia infection in Amblyomma tonelliae, a tick species from the Amblyomma cajennense complex.

TARRAGONA EL, CICUTTIN GL, MANGOLD AJ, MASTROPAOLO M, DE SALVO MN, NAVA S

Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases

Elsevier

Año: 2015 vol. 6 p. 173 - 177

1877-959X

The present study was performed to evaluate the Rickettsia infection in Amblyomma tonelliae ticks fromArgentina. All ticks were subjected to DNA extraction and tested by a battery of PCRs to amplify fragmentsof four rickettsial genes, 23S-5S, gltA, ompA and htrA. Two ticks were positive. The Rickettsia detected inone tick represents a new lineage which is named Rickettsia sp. strain El Tunal. This new strain belongsto the canadensis group because it is closely related to Rickettsia monteiroi, Rickettsia canadensis andCandidatus ?Rickettsia tarasevichiae?. They clustered together on a high supported clade with both gltAand htrA genes. The other positive tick was infected with Candidatus ?Rickettsia amblyommii?. The resultspresented in this study constitute the first records of Rickettsia infection in A. tonelliae ticks. However,the medical relevance of these findings should be considered cautiously because the pathogenicity ofRickettsia sp. strain El Tunal and Candidatus ?R. amblyommii? remains undetermined.