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. 2023 May 30;12(6):781.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens12060781.

White-Toothed Shrews (Genus Crocidura): Potential Reservoirs for Zoonotic Leptospira spp. and Arthropod-Borne Pathogens?

Viola Haring  1 , Jens Jacob  2 , Bernd Walther  2 , Martin Trost  3 , Michael Stubbe  4 , Katja Mertens-Scholz  5 , Falk Melzer  5 , Nelly Scuda  6 , Michaela Gentil  7 , Wolfdieter Sixl  8 , Tanja Schäfer  9 , Michal Stanko  10 , Ronny Wolf  11 , Martin Pfeffer  12 , Rainer G Ulrich  1 , Anna Obiegala  12
Affiliations

White-Toothed Shrews (Genus Crocidura): Potential Reservoirs for Zoonotic Leptospira spp. and Arthropod-Borne Pathogens?

Viola Haring et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Three species of white-toothed shrews of the order Eulipotyphla are present in central Europe: the bicolored (Crocidura leucodon), greater (Crocidura russula) and lesser (Crocidura suaveolens) white-toothed shrews. Their precise distribution in Germany is ill-defined and little is known about them as reservoirs for zoonotic pathogens (Leptospira spp., Coxiella burnetii, Brucella spp., Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Babesia spp., Neoehrlichia mikurensis and Bartonella spp.). We investigated 372 Crocidura spp. from Germany (n = 341), Austria (n = 18), Luxembourg (n = 2) and Slovakia (n = 11). West European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) were added to compare the presence of pathogens in co-occurring insectivores. Crocidura russula were distributed mainly in western and C. suaveolens mainly in north-eastern Germany. Crocidura leucodon occurred in overlapping ranges with the other shrews. Leptospira spp. DNA was detected in 28/227 C. russula and 2/78 C. leucodon samples. Further characterization revealed that Leptospira kirschneri had a sequence type (ST) 100. Neoehrlichia mikurensis DNA was detected in spleen tissue from 2/213 C. russula samples. Hedgehogs carried DNA from L. kirschneri (ST 100), L. interrogans (ST 24), A. phagocytophilum and two Bartonella species. This study improves the knowledge of the current distribution of Crocidura shrews and identifies C. russula as carrier of Leptospira kirschneri. However, shrews seem to play little-to-no role in the circulation of the arthropod-borne pathogens investigated.

Keywords: Anaplasma phagocytophilum; Babesia spp.; Bartonella spp.; Brucella spp.; Coxiella burnetii; Leptospira spp.; Neoehrlichia mikurensis; distribution; reservoir; shrew.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Origin of the investigated white-toothed shrews from Germany (n = 341), Luxembourg (n = 2), Austria (n = 18) and Slovakia (n = 11) based on common postal code; per trapping site, each detected species is represented by one dot. NL: the Netherlands; LU: Luxembourg; FR: France; DE: Germany; CH: Switzerland; AT: Austria; CZ: Czech Republic; PL: Poland; SK: Slovakia; HU: Hungary.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of investigated white-toothed shrews from Germany: greater white-toothed shrew (Crocidura russula, purple), bicolored white-toothed shrew (Crocidura leucodon, green), lesser white-toothed shrew (Crocidura suaveolens, blue); per trapping site, each detected species is represented by one dot. I Southwest: SL: Saarland, RP: Rhineland–Palatinate, BW: Baden–Wuerttemberg, HE: Hesse; II Northwest: NW: North Rhine–Westphalia, NI: Lower Saxony, HB: Bremen, HH: Hamburg; III Northeast: ST: Saxony–Anhalt, BB: Brandenburg, B: Berlin; MV: Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania; IV Southeast: BY: Bavaria, TH: Thuringia, SN: Saxony.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Detection of Leptospira kirschneri DNA (blue) and Neoehrlichia mikurensis DNA (orange) in white-toothed shrews. Numbers of positive individuals are indicated by a brighter colour. Trapping sites with no detection of any investigated pathogens are marked in grey. Investigations into hedgehogs are shown in yellow (four Leptospira spp. DNA, four A. phagocytophilum DNA and three Bartonella spp. DNA positive hedgehogs, with no co-infection).
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