Prevalence and genetic diversity of Bartonella spp. in small mammals from Southeastern Asia

Abstract

Among 1,341 blood samples from rodents that were trapped in Southeast Asia between 2008 and 2010, we found a prevalence of Bartonella infection ranging from 9.6 to 11.9%. Bartonella species identified (143 isolates) included B. elizabethae, B. coopersplainsensis, B. phoceensis, B. queenslandensis, B. rattimassiliensis, B. tribocorum, and three new putative Bartonella species.

Fig 1

Geographical distribution of the trapped rodents and the study areas consist of the sampling sites in two provinces of Cambodia (Mondolkiri and Sihanouk), two provinces of Lao PDR (Luang Prabang and Champasuk), and three provinces of Thailand (Nan, Loei, and Buriram). (Template map adapted from Google Earth [U.S. Department of State Geographer, 2012, Mapabc.com; Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, 2012, Tele Atlas].)

Fig 2

By using the maximum parsimony method, we concatenated a phylogenetic tree of the partial gltA and rpoB sequences of the Bartonella isolates from this study and compared them to validated Bartonella species. The 60 different sequences were classified into 9 clusters (clusters A to I). Abbreivations for species of the infected hosts: Bbe, B. berdmorei; BI, B. indica; BS, B. savilei; Bsp, Bandicota sp.; Mca, M. caroli; Mce, M. cervicolor; Mco, M. cookii; Msp, Mus sp.; MS, M. surifer; NF, N. fulvescens; Rar, R. argentiventer; Ran, R. andamanensis; RE, R. exulans; Rno, R. norvegicus; Rph, R. tanezumi clade R3; RT, R. tanezumi; SM, S. murinus.