NYMC Faculty Publications
A New Genetic Approach to Distinguish Strains of Anaplasma Phagocytophilum that Appear Not to Cause Human Disease
Author Type(s)
Faculty
Journal Title
Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases
First Page
101659
Last Page
101659
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2021
Department
Medicine
Second Department
Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
Abstract
Genetic diversity of Anaplasma phagocytophilum was assessed in specimens from 16 infected patients and 16 infected Ixodes scapularis ticks. A region immediately downstream of the 16S rRNA gene, which included the gene encoding SdhC, was sequenced. For the A. phagocytophilum strains from patients no sequence differences were detected in this region. In contrast, significantly fewer ticks had a sequence encoding SdhC that was identical to that of the human strains (11/16 vs. 16/16, p = 0.04). This variation is consistent with the premise that not all A. phagocytophilum strains present in nature are able to cause clinical illness in humans. A strain referred to as A. phagocytophilumVariant-1 that is regarded as non-pathogenic for humans was previously described using a different typing method. Data from the current study suggest that both typing methods are identifying the same non-pathogenic strains.
Recommended Citation
Liveris, D., Aguero-Rosenfeld, M. E., Daniels, T. J., Karpathy, S., Paddock, C., Adish, S., Keesing, F., Ostfeld, R. S., Wormser, G. P., & Schwartz, I. (2021). A New Genetic Approach to Distinguish Strains of Anaplasma Phagocytophilum that Appear Not to Cause Human Disease. Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases, 12 (3), 101659-101659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ttbdis.2021.101659
