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Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas
BACKGROUND: Rickettsia felis is a flea-associated rickettsial pathogen recurrently identified in both colonized and wild-caught cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis. We hypothesized that within colonized fleas, the intimate relationship between R. felis and C. felis allows for the coordination of ricket...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2008
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2474969/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18665265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002805 |
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author | Reif, Kathryn E. Stout, Rhett W. Henry, Gretchen C. Foil, Lane D. Macaluso, Kevin R. |
author_facet | Reif, Kathryn E. Stout, Rhett W. Henry, Gretchen C. Foil, Lane D. Macaluso, Kevin R. |
author_sort | Reif, Kathryn E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Rickettsia felis is a flea-associated rickettsial pathogen recurrently identified in both colonized and wild-caught cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis. We hypothesized that within colonized fleas, the intimate relationship between R. felis and C. felis allows for the coordination of rickettsial replication and metabolically active periods during flea bloodmeal acquisition and oogenesis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A quantitative real-time PCR assay was developed to quantify R. felis in actively feeding R. felis-infected fleas. In three separate trials, fleas were allowed to feed on cats, and a mean of 3.9×10(6) R. felis 17-kDa gene copies was detected for each flea. A distinct R. felis infection pattern was not observed in fleas during nine consecutive days of bloodfeeding. However, an inverse correlation between the prevalence of R. felis-infection, which ranged from 96% in Trial 1 to 35% in Trial 3, and the R. felis-infection load in individual fleas was identified. Expression of R. felis-infection load as a ratio of R. felis/C. felis genes confirmed that fleas in Trial 3 had significantly greater rickettsial loads than those in Trial 1. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Examining rickettsial infection dynamics in the flea vector will further elucidate the intimate relationship between R. felis and C. felis, and facilitate a more accurate understanding of the ecology and epidemiology of R. felis transmission in nature. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2474969 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2008 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-24749692008-07-30 Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas Reif, Kathryn E. Stout, Rhett W. Henry, Gretchen C. Foil, Lane D. Macaluso, Kevin R. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Rickettsia felis is a flea-associated rickettsial pathogen recurrently identified in both colonized and wild-caught cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis. We hypothesized that within colonized fleas, the intimate relationship between R. felis and C. felis allows for the coordination of rickettsial replication and metabolically active periods during flea bloodmeal acquisition and oogenesis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A quantitative real-time PCR assay was developed to quantify R. felis in actively feeding R. felis-infected fleas. In three separate trials, fleas were allowed to feed on cats, and a mean of 3.9×10(6) R. felis 17-kDa gene copies was detected for each flea. A distinct R. felis infection pattern was not observed in fleas during nine consecutive days of bloodfeeding. However, an inverse correlation between the prevalence of R. felis-infection, which ranged from 96% in Trial 1 to 35% in Trial 3, and the R. felis-infection load in individual fleas was identified. Expression of R. felis-infection load as a ratio of R. felis/C. felis genes confirmed that fleas in Trial 3 had significantly greater rickettsial loads than those in Trial 1. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Examining rickettsial infection dynamics in the flea vector will further elucidate the intimate relationship between R. felis and C. felis, and facilitate a more accurate understanding of the ecology and epidemiology of R. felis transmission in nature. Public Library of Science 2008-07-30 /pmc/articles/PMC2474969/ /pubmed/18665265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002805 Text en Reif et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Reif, Kathryn E. Stout, Rhett W. Henry, Gretchen C. Foil, Lane D. Macaluso, Kevin R. Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title | Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title_full | Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title_fullStr | Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title_full_unstemmed | Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title_short | Prevalence and Infection Load Dynamics of Rickettsia felis in Actively Feeding Cat Fleas |
title_sort | prevalence and infection load dynamics of rickettsia felis in actively feeding cat fleas |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2474969/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18665265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002805 |
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