Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 20;11(1):130.
doi: 10.1186/s13071-018-2713-z.

First detection of Borrelia miyamotoi in Ixodes ricinus ticks from northern Italy

Silvia Ravagnan  1 , Laura Tomassone  2 , Fabrizio Montarsi  1 , Aleksandra Iwona Krawczyk  3 , Eleonora Mastrorilli  1 , Hein Sprong  3 , Adelaide Milani  1 , Luca Rossi  2 , Gioia Capelli  4
Affiliations

First detection of Borrelia miyamotoi in Ixodes ricinus ticks from northern Italy

Silvia Ravagnan et al. Parasit Vectors. .

Abstract

Background: Borrelia miyamotoi is a spirochete transmitted by several ixodid tick species. It causes a relapsing fever in humans and is currently considered as an emerging pathogen. In Europe, B. miyamotoi seems to occur at low prevalence in Ixodes ricinus ticks but has a wide distribution. Here we report the first detection of B. miyamotoi in Ixodes ricinus ticks collected in two independent studies conducted in 2016 in the north-eastern and north-western Alps, Italy.

Results: Three out of 405 nymphs (0.74%) tested positive for Borrelia miyamotoi. In particular, B. miyamotoi was found in 2/365 nymphs in the western and in 1/40 nymphs in the eastern alpine area. These are the first findings of B. miyamotoi in Italy.

Conclusions: Exposure to B. miyamotoi and risk of human infection may occur through tick bites in northern Italy. Relapsing fever caused by Borrelia miyamotoi has not yet been reported in Italy, but misdiagnoses with tick-borne encephalitis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis or other relapsing fever can occur. Our findings suggest that B. miyamotoi should be considered in the differential diagnosis of febrile patients originating from Lyme borreliosis endemic regions. The distribution of this pathogen and its relevance to public health need further investigation.

Keywords: Borrelia miyamotoi; Ixodes ricinus; Northern Italy; Zoonosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Phylogenetic tree of glpQ gene (625 bp) of Borrelia miyamotoi. Sequence dataset was analyzed using MEGA 6, the neighbour-joining (NJ) method, and bootstrap analysis (1000 replicates) based on the ClustalW algorithm. Significant bootstrapping values (> 70%) are shown on the nodes. Borrelia lonestari was used as an outgroup. The sequence generated in this study (MG451835) is indicated by a black circle
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Krause PJ, Fish D, Narasimhan S, Barbour AG. Borrelia miyamotoi infection in nature and in humans. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2015;21:631–639. doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2015.02.006. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fukunaga M, Takahasci Y, Tsuruta Y, Matsushita O, Ralph D, McClelland M, et al. Genetic and phenotypic analysis of Borrelia miyamotoi sp. nov., isolated from the ixodid tick Ixodes persulcatus, the vector for Lyme disease in Japan. Int J Syst Bacteriol. 1995;45:804–810. doi: 10.1099/00207713-45-4-804. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Platonov AE, Karan LS, Kolyasnikova NM, Makhneva NA, Toporkova MG, Maleev VV, et al. Humans infected with relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia miyamotoi, Russia. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011;17:1816–1823. doi: 10.3201/eid1710.101474. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Telford SR, Goethert HK, Molloy PJ, Berardi VP, Chowdri HR, Gugliotta JL, et al. Borrelia miyamotoi disease. Clin Lab Med. 2015;35:867–882. doi: 10.1016/j.cll.2015.08.002. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Siński E, Welc-Falęciak R, Zajkowska J. Borrelia miyamotoi: A human tick-borne relapsing fever spirochete in Europe and its potential impact on public health. Adv Med Sci. 2016;61:255–260. doi: 10.1016/j.advms.2016.03.001. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types