Human-pathogenic relapsing fever Borrelia found in bats from Central China phylogenetically clustered together with relapsing fever borreliae reported in the New World.

ABSTRACT: Bats can harbor zoonotic pathogens causing emerging infectious diseases, but their status as hosts for bacteria is limited. We aimed to investigate the distribution, prevalence and genetic diversity of Borrelia in bats and bat ticks in Hubei Province, China, which will give us a better understanding of the risk of Borrelia infection posed by bats and their ticks. During 2018-2020, 403 bats were captured from caves in Hubei Province, China, 2 bats were PCR-positive for Borrelia. Sequence analysis of rrs, flaB and glpQ genes of positive samples showed 99.55%-100% similarity to Candidatus Borrelia fainii, a novel human-pathogenic relapsing fever Borrelia species recently reported in Zambia, Africa and Eastern China, which was clustered together with relapsing fever Borrelia species traditiona

SUBMITTER: Li ZM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7971464 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature