Bartonella detection

Occhibove, Flavia, McKeown, Niall J., Risley, Claire & Ironside, Joseph E., 2022, Eco-epidemiological screening of multi-host wild rodent communities in the UK reveals pathogen strains of zoonotic interest, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 17, pp. 278-287 : 284

4.5. Bartonella detection in the flea community

Bartonella spp. were detected in A. penicilliger , M. turbidus , H. talpae , and C. nobilis , the most common flea species among the ones collected. The overall prevalence of Bartonella spp. was in the range of values found in other field studies (e.g. Abbot et al., 2007; Abreu-Yanes et al., 2018; Stevenson et al., 2003; Withenshaw et al., 2016). In Ireland, Telfer et al. (2005) observed Bartonella sp. infection in a similar flea community to the one sampled here, and reported similar flea species prevalence. Flea prevalence seems not directly related to host infection ( Withenshaw et al., 2016), but rodent host species displays seasonal prevalence variations connected with host demography and patterns of acquired immunity to different Bartonella species ( Kosoy et al., 2004 a; Telfer et al., 2007a). While this could not be tested in this study, no seasonality was recorded in flea infestation.

DNA sequencing indicated that at least two species, with high similarity to B. grahamii , and Candidatus B. rudovakii , were circulating at the sampling sites. Bartonella grahamii has been widely recorded in rodent fleas in the UK ( Birtles et al., 2000; Telfer et al., 2007a, 2007c; Withenshaw et al., 2016) and other countries (e.g. Spitalska ˇ´et al., 2017). Bartonella rudovakii was originally described from M. glareolus in Russia (Genbank EF682088), and has also been recorded from M. oeconomus in Lithuania (Mardosaite-Busaitiene ˙˙et al., 2019). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that B. rudovakii has been discovered in the UK.