Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0278582

Publication Title

PLoS One

Volume

17

Issue

12

Pages

e0278582 (1-16)

Abstract

Bacterial endosymbionts are abundantly found in both hard and soft ticks. Occidentia massiliensis, a rickettsial endosymbiont, was first identified in the soft tick Ornithodoros sonrai collected from Senegal and later was identified in a hard tick Africaniella transversale. In this study, we noted the presence of Occidentia species, designated as Occidentia-like species, in a soft tick O. turicata americanus. Sequencing and phylogenetic analyses of the two genetic markers, 16S rRNA and groEL confirmed the presence of Occidentia-like species in O. turicata americanus ticks. The Occidentia-like species was noted to be present in all developmental stages of O. turicata americanus and in different tick tissues including ovaries, synganglion, guts and salivary gland. The levels of Occidentia-like species 16S rRNA transcripts were noted to be significantly higher in ovaries than in a gut tissue. In addition, Occidentia-like species groEL expression was noted to be significantly higher in tick synganglion than in ovaries and gut tissues. Furthermore, levels of Occidentia-like species 16S rRNA transcripts increased significantly upon O. turicata americanus blood feeding. Taken together, our study not only shows that Occidentia-like species is present in O. turicata americanus but also suggests that this bacterium may play a role in tick-bacteria interactions.

Rights

© 2022 Liu et al.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability

Article States: "All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files".

Supplemental materials are linked in the PDF version of the article and also available online at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278582

Original Publication Citation

Liu, L., Sonenshine, D. E., Sultana, H., & Neelakanta, G. (2022). Identification of a rickettsial endosymbiont in a soft tick Ornithodoros turicata americanus. PLoS ONE, 17(12), 1-16, Article e0278582. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278582

ORCID

0000-0001-9370-918X (Sonenshine)

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