One Health approach to hemotropic mycoplasmas (hemoplasmas): Molecular detection in quilombola communities and their dogs in Brazil

Abstract

Hemoplasmas (hemotropic mycoplasmas) are obligatory red blood cell bacteria that may infect and cause anemia in several mammalian species. IAccordingly, the present study assessed four quilombola communities during six on-field expeditions between December 2021 and March 2022 in the central-eastern Paraná State, southern Brazil. Overall, 12/208 (5.8 %) quilombola individuals were positive for hemoplasma infection by qPCR. Results of 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing confirmed Mycoplasma heamocanis infection in two human samples. In addition, hemoplasma infection was detected by qPCR in 19/100 (19.0 %) dogs including 16/19 (84.2 %) dogs for Candidatus Mycoplasma haematoparvum, 7/19 (3.7 %) for M. haemocanis, and 4/19 (21.0 %) for both. To the author's knowledge, this is the first One Health approach study of hemoplasma detection in quilombola individuals along with their dogs as vulnerable populations worldwide, with M. heamocanis detection in both human and companion animals.

Keywords: Hemoparasites; Mycoplasma; One health; Social vulnerability; Zoonosis.

Fig. 1

Phylogenetic analysis of amplicon sequences obtained by tNGS Neighbor-Joining trees of 16 S rRNA gene sequences from positive human samples.

Fig. 2

Sampling location and distribution of hemoplasmas infection in quilombola communities of southern Brazil. Paraná state accounts for 10 territories and São Paulo State for 35 of the total 494 delimited areas present in the IBGE 2022 census database. Other quilombola communities exist without defined limits; the census estimated a total of 1,327,802 individuals.