1. Humans parasitized by the hard tickIxodes ricinusare seropositive toMidichloria mitochondrii: isMidichloriaa novel pathogen, or just a marker of tick bite?
- Author
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Piero Marone, Sara Epis, Claudio Bandi, Davide Sassera, Chiara Bazzocchi, Mara Mariconti, Massimo Fabbi, Vittorio Sambri, Paolo Gaibani, Paola Tomao, Claudia Dalla Valle, Francesco Castelli, Mariconti M, Epis S, Gaibani P, Dalla Valle C, Sassera D, Tomao P, Fabbi M, Castelli F, Marone P, Sambri V, Bazzocchi C, and Bandi C
- Subjects
Saliva ,Midichloria mitochondrii ,Ixodes ricinus ,Midichloria ,Human sera ,Biology ,Tick ,Microbiology ,Salivary Glands ,Seroepidemiologic Studies ,parasitic diseases ,medicine ,HUMAN PERSON ,Animals ,Humans ,MALOs ,Pathogen ,Serological screening ,Alphaproteobacteria ,Tick-borne disease ,Ixodes ,Ricinus ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Insect Bites and Stings ,Tick-borne bacteria ,Bacterial Infections ,General Medicine ,biology.organism_classification ,medicine.disease ,Antibodies, Bacterial ,Virology ,Infectious Diseases ,Tick-Borne Diseases ,Female ,Original Article ,Parasitology - Abstract
Midichloria mitochondrii is an intracellular bacterium found in the hard tick Ixodes ricinus. In this arthropod, M. mitochondrii is observed in the oocytes and in other cells of the ovary, where the symbiont is present in the cell cytoplasm and inside the mitochondria. No studies have so far investigated whether M. mitochondrii is present in the salivary glands of the tick and whether it is transmitted to vertebrates during the tick blood meal. To address the above issues, we developed a recombinant antigen of M. mitochondrii (to screen human sera) and antibodies against this antigen (for the staining of the symbiont). Using these reagents we show that (i) M. mitochondrii is present in the salivary glands of I. ricinus and that (ii) seropositivity against M. mitochondrii is highly prevalent in humans parasitized by I. ricinus (58%), while it is very low in healthy individuals (1·2%). These results provide evidence that M. mitochondrii is released with the tick saliva and raise the possibility that M. mitochondrii is infectious to vertebrates. Besides this, our study indicates that M. mitochondrii should be regarded as a package of antigens inoculated into the human host during the tick bite. This implies that the immunology of the response toward the saliva of I. ricinus is to be reconsidered on the basis of potential effects of M. mitochondrii and poses the basis for the development of novel markers for investigating the exposure of humans and animals to this tick species.
- Published
- 2012