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Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii

Q fever is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by the intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii. While transmission is primarily but not exclusively airborne, ticks are usually thought to act as vectors on the basis of early microscopy studies. However, recent observations revealed that endosymbion...

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Autores principales: Buysse, Marie, Duhayon, Maxime, Cantet, Franck, Bonazzi, Matteo, Duron, Olivier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7815103/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33406079
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009008
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author Buysse, Marie
Duhayon, Maxime
Cantet, Franck
Bonazzi, Matteo
Duron, Olivier
author_facet Buysse, Marie
Duhayon, Maxime
Cantet, Franck
Bonazzi, Matteo
Duron, Olivier
author_sort Buysse, Marie
collection PubMed
description Q fever is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by the intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii. While transmission is primarily but not exclusively airborne, ticks are usually thought to act as vectors on the basis of early microscopy studies. However, recent observations revealed that endosymbionts of ticks have been commonly misidentified as C. burnetii, calling the importance of tick-borne transmission into question. In this study, we re-evaluated the vector competence of the African soft tick Ornithodoros moubata for an avirulent strain of C. burnetii. To this end, we used an artificial feeding system to initiate infection of ticks, specific molecular tools to monitor further infections, and culture assays in axenic and cell media to check for the viability of C. burnetii excreted by ticks. We observed typical traits associated with vector competence: The exposure to an infected blood meal resulted in viable and persistent infections in ticks, trans-stadial transmissions of infection from nymphs to adults and the ability of adult ticks to transmit infectious C. burnetii. However, in contrast to early studies, we found that infection differed substantially between tick organs. In addition, while adult female ticks were infected, we did not observe C. burnetii in eggs, suggesting that transovarial transmission is not effective. Finally, we detected only a sporadic presence of C. burnetii DNA in tick faeces, but no living bacterium was further isolated in culture assays, suggesting that excretion in faeces is not a common mode of transmission in O. moubata.
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spelling pubmed-78151032021-01-27 Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii Buysse, Marie Duhayon, Maxime Cantet, Franck Bonazzi, Matteo Duron, Olivier PLoS Negl Trop Dis Research Article Q fever is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by the intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii. While transmission is primarily but not exclusively airborne, ticks are usually thought to act as vectors on the basis of early microscopy studies. However, recent observations revealed that endosymbionts of ticks have been commonly misidentified as C. burnetii, calling the importance of tick-borne transmission into question. In this study, we re-evaluated the vector competence of the African soft tick Ornithodoros moubata for an avirulent strain of C. burnetii. To this end, we used an artificial feeding system to initiate infection of ticks, specific molecular tools to monitor further infections, and culture assays in axenic and cell media to check for the viability of C. burnetii excreted by ticks. We observed typical traits associated with vector competence: The exposure to an infected blood meal resulted in viable and persistent infections in ticks, trans-stadial transmissions of infection from nymphs to adults and the ability of adult ticks to transmit infectious C. burnetii. However, in contrast to early studies, we found that infection differed substantially between tick organs. In addition, while adult female ticks were infected, we did not observe C. burnetii in eggs, suggesting that transovarial transmission is not effective. Finally, we detected only a sporadic presence of C. burnetii DNA in tick faeces, but no living bacterium was further isolated in culture assays, suggesting that excretion in faeces is not a common mode of transmission in O. moubata. Public Library of Science 2021-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7815103/ /pubmed/33406079 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009008 Text en © 2021 Buysse 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Buysse, Marie
Duhayon, Maxime
Cantet, Franck
Bonazzi, Matteo
Duron, Olivier
Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title_full Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title_fullStr Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title_full_unstemmed Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title_short Vector competence of the African argasid tick Ornithodoros moubata for the Q fever agent Coxiella burnetii
title_sort vector competence of the african argasid tick ornithodoros moubata for the q fever agent coxiella burnetii
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7815103/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33406079
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009008
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