Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-vdhp9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-20T07:09:32.436Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bartonella species in bat flies (Diptera: Nycteribiidae) from western Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2012

S. A. BILLETER ,
D. T. S. HAYMAN ,
A. J. PEEL ,
K. BAKER ,
J. L. N. WOOD ,
A. CUNNINGHAM ,
R. SUU-IRE ,
K. DITTMAR  and
M. Y. KOSOY
S. A. BILLETER
Affiliation:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Vector Borne Diseases, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
D. T. S. HAYMAN
Affiliation:
Rabies and Wildlife Zoonoses Group, Veterinary Laboratories Agency-Weybridge, Surrey, UK Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London NW1 4RY, UK
A. J. PEEL
Affiliation:
Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London NW1 4RY, UK
K. BAKER
Affiliation:
Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London NW1 4RY, UK
J. L. N. WOOD
Affiliation:
Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
A. CUNNINGHAM
Affiliation:
Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London NW1 4RY, UK
R. SUU-IRE
Affiliation:
Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, Accra, Ghana
K. DITTMAR
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Biological Sciences, Buffalo, New York, USA
M. Y. KOSOY*
Affiliation:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Vector Borne Diseases, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Vector Borne Diseases, 3150 Rampart Road, Fort Collins, CO 80521, USA. Tel: +970 266 3522. Fax: +970 225 4257. E-mail: mck3@cdc.gov
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Bat flies are obligate ectoparasites of bats and it has been hypothesized that they may be involved in the transmission of Bartonella species between bats. A survey was conducted to identify whether Cyclopodia greefi greefi (Diptera: Nycteribiidae) collected from Ghana and 2 islands in the Gulf of Guinea harbour Bartonella. In total, 137 adult flies removed from Eidolon helvum, the straw-coloured fruit bat, were screened for the presence of Bartonella by culture and PCR analysis. Bartonella DNA was detected in 91 (66·4%) of the specimens examined and 1 strain of a Bartonella sp., initially identified in E. helvum blood from Kenya, was obtained from a bat fly collected in Ghana. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to report the identification and isolation of Bartonella in bat flies from western Africa.

Keywords

BartonellaCyclopodia bat flyEidolon helvumbatAfricaPCRculture

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 139 , Issue 3 , March 2012 , pp. 324 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Battistini, T. S. (1931). La verrue péruvienne: sa transmission par le Phlébotome. Revue Sud-Americaine de Médicine et de Chirurgie 2, 719–724.Google Scholar
Billeter, S. A., Levy, M. G., Chomel, B. B. and Breitschwerdt, E. B. (2008). Vector transmission of Bartonella species with emphasis on the potential for tick transmission. Medical and Veterinary Entomolology 22, 1–15. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2915.2008.00713.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birtles, R. J. and Raoult, D. (1996). Comparison of partial citrate synthase gene (gltA) sequences for phylogenetic analysis of Bartonella species. International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology 46, 891–897. doi: 10.1099/00207713-46-4-891.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bown, K. J., Bennett, M. and Begon, M. (2004). Flea-borne Bartonella grahamii and Bartonella taylorii in bank voles. Emerging Infectious Diseases 10, 684–687.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breitschwerdt, E. B., Maggi, R. G., Chomel, B. B. and Lappin, M. R. (2010). Bartonellosis: an emerging infectious disease of zoonotic importance to animals and human beings. Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care 20, 8–30. doi: 10.1111/j.1476-4431.2009.00496.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chomel, B. B., Kasten, R. W., Floyd-Hawkins, K., Chi, B., Yamamoto, K., Roberts-Wilson, J., Gurfield, A. N., Abbott, R. C., Pederson, N. C. and Koehler, J. E. (1996). Experimental transmission of Bartonella henselae by the cat flea. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 34, 1952–1956.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dehio, C., Sauder, U. and Hiestand, R. (2004). Isolation of Bartonella schoenbuchensis from Lipoptena cervi, a blood-sucking arthropod causing deer ked dermatitis. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 42, 5320–5323. doi: 10.1128/JCM.42.11.5320-5323.2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dick, C. W. and Patterson, B. D. (2006). Bat flies-obligate ectoparasites of bats. In Micromammals and Microparasites: From Evolutionary Ecology to Management (eds. Morand, S., Krasnov, B.R. and Poulin, R.), pp. 179–194. Springer-Verlag, Tokyo, Japan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dittmar, K., Porter, M. L., Murry, S. and Whiting, M. F. (2006). Molecular phylogenetic analysis of nycteribiid and streblid bat flies (Diptera: Brachycera, Calyptratae): Implications for host associations and phylogeographic origins. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 38, 155–170. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.06.008.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halos, L., Jamal, T., Maillard, R., Girard, B., Guillot, J., Chomel, B., Vayssier-Taussat, M. and Boulouis, H.-J. (2004). Role of Hippoboscidae flies as potential vectors of Bartonella spp. infecting wild and domestic ruminants. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 70, 6302–6305. doi: 10.1128/AEM.70.10.6302-6305.2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosoy, M., Bai, Y., Lynch, T., Kuzmin, I. V., Niezgoda, M., Franka, R., Agwanda, B., Breiman, R. F. and Rupprecht, C. E. (2010). Bartonella spp. in bats, Kenya. Emerging Infectious Diseases 16, 1875–1881. doi: 10.3201/eid1612.100601.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
La Scola, B., Zeaiter, Z., Khamis, A. and Raoult, D. (2003). Gene-sequence-based criteria for species definition in bacteriology: the Bartonella paradigm. Trends in Microbiology 11, 318–321. doi: 10.1016/S0966-842X(03)00143-4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loftis, A. D., Gill, J. S., Schriefer, M. E., Levin, M. L., Eremeeva, M. E., Gilchrist, M. J. and Dasch, G. A. (2005). Detection of Rickettsia, Borrelia, and Bartonella in Carios kelleyi (Acari: Argasidae). Journal of Medical Entomology 42, 473–480. doi: 10.1603/0022-2585(2005)042[0473:DORBAB]2.0.CO;2.Google ScholarPubMed
Marchesi, J. R., Sato, T., Weightman, A. J., Martin, T. A., Fry, J. C., Hiom, S. J., Dymock, D. and Wade, W. G. (1998). Design and evaluation of useful bacterium-specific PCR primers that amplify genes coding for bacterial 16S rRNA. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 64, 795–799.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matsumoto, K., Berrada, Z. L., Klinger, E., Goethert, H. K. and Telford III, S. R. (2008). Molecular detection of Bartonella schoenbuchensis from ectoparasites of deer in Massachusetts. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases 8, 549–554. doi: 10.1089/vbz.2007.0244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reeves, W. K., Dowling, A. P. G. and Dasch, G. A. (2006 a). Rickettsial agents from parasitic Dermanyssoidea (Acari: Mesostigmata). Experimental and Applied Acarology 38, 181–188. doi: 10.1007/s10493-006-0007-1.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reeves, W. K., Loftis, A. D., Gore, J. A. and Dasch, G. A. (2005). Molecular evidence for novel Bartonella species in Trichobius major (Diptera: Streblidae) and Cimex adjunctus (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) from two southeastern bat caves, U.S.A. Journal of Vector Ecology 30, 339–341.Google ScholarPubMed
Reeves, W. K., Nelder, M. P., Cobb, K. D. and Dasch, G. A. (2006 b). Bartonella spp. in deer keds, Lipoptena mazamae (Diptera: Hippoboscidae), from Georgia and South Carolina, USA. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 42, 391–396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reeves, W. K., Rogers, T. E., Durden, L. A. and Dasch, G. A. (2007). Association of Bartonella with the fleas (Siphonaptera) of rodents and bats using molecular techniques. Journal of Vector Ecology 32, 118–122. doi: 10.3376/1081-1710(2007)32[118:AOBWTF]2.0.CO;2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reis, C., Cote, M., Le Rhun, D., Lecuelle, B., Levin, M. L., Vayssier-Taussat, M. and Bonnet, S. I. (2011). Vector competence of the tick Ixodes ricinus for transmission of Bartonella birtlesii. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 5, e1186. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001186.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Renesto, P., Gouvernet, J., Drancourt, M., Roux, V. and Raoult, D. (2001). Use of rpoB gene analysis for detection and identification of Bartonella species. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 39, 430–437. doi: 10.1128/JCM.39.2.430-437.2001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Theodor, O. (1967). An Illustrated Catalogue of the Rothschild Collection of Nycteribiidae (Diptera) in the British Museum (Natural History), with Keys and Short Descriptions for the Identification of Subfamilies, Genera, Species, and Subspecies. British Museum of Natural History, London, UK.Google Scholar
Swift, H. F. (1920). Trench fever. Archives of Internal Medicine 26, 76–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, S., Lau, S., Woo, P. and Yuen, K.-Y. (2007). Bats as continuing source of emerging infections in humans. Reviews in Medical Virology 17, 67–91. doi: 10.1002/rmv.520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeaiter, Z., Liang, Z. and Raoult, D. (2002). Genetic classification and differentiation of Bartonella species based on comparison of partial ftsZ gene sequences. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 40, 3641–3647. doi: 10.1128/JCM.40.10.3641-3647.2002.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed