Evidence of Q Fever and Rickettsial Disease in Chile

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Abstract

Q fever and rickettsial diseases occur throughout the world and appear to be emergent zoonoses in Chile. The diagnosis of these diseases is currently uncommon in Chile, as their clinical presentations are non-specific and appropriate diagnostic laboratory assays are of limited availability. During a recent outbreak of undiagnosed human atypical pneumonia, we serologically investigated a series of 357 cases from three regions of southern Chile. The aim was to identify those caused by Coxiella burnetii and/or Rickettsia spp. Serological analysis was performed by ELISA and an immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for acute and convalescence sera of patients. Our results, including data from two international reference laboratories, demonstrate that 71 (20%) of the cases were Q fever, and 44 (15%) were a likely rickettsial infection, although the rickettsial species could not be confirmed by serology. This study is the first report of endemic Q fever and rickettsial disease affecting humans in Chile.

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Most cited references 24

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Endemic Scrub Typhus in South America.

Thomas Weitzel, Sabine Dittrich, Javier López … (2016)

Scrub typhus is a life-threatening zoonosis caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi organisms that are transmitted by the larvae of trombiculid mites. Endemic scrub typhus was originally thought to be confined to the so called "tsutsugamushi triangle" within the Asia-Pacific region. In 2006, however, two individual cases were detected in the Middle East and South America, which suggested that the pathogen was present farther afield. Here, we report three autochthonous cases of scrub typhus caused by O. tsutsugamushi acquired on Chiloé Island in southern Chile, which suggests the existence of an endemic focus in South America. (Funded by the Chilean Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica and the Wellcome Trust.).

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Rickettsia Phylogenomics: Unwinding the Intricacies of Obligate Intracellular Life

Joseph J. Gillespie, Kelly Williams, Maulik Shukla … (2008)

Background Completed genome sequences are rapidly increasing for Rickettsia, obligate intracellular α-proteobacteria responsible for various human diseases, including epidemic typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. In light of phylogeny, the establishment of orthologous groups (OGs) of open reading frames (ORFs) will distinguish the core rickettsial genes and other group specific genes (class 1 OGs or C1OGs) from those distributed indiscriminately throughout the rickettsial tree (class 2 OG or C2OGs). Methodology/Principal Findings We present 1823 representative (no gene duplications) and 259 non-representative (at least one gene duplication) rickettsial OGs. While the highly reductive (∼1.2 MB) Rickettsia genomes range in predicted ORFs from 872 to 1512, a core of 752 OGs was identified, depicting the essential Rickettsia genes. Unsurprisingly, this core lacks many metabolic genes, reflecting the dependence on host resources for growth and survival. Additionally, we bolster our recent reclassification of Rickettsia by identifying OGs that define the AG (ancestral group), TG (typhus group), TRG (transitional group), and SFG (spotted fever group) rickettsiae. OGs for insect-associated species, tick-associated species and species that harbor plasmids were also predicted. Through superimposition of all OGs over robust phylogeny estimation, we discern between C1OGs and C2OGs, the latter depicting genes either decaying from the conserved C1OGs or acquired laterally. Finally, scrutiny of non-representative OGs revealed high levels of split genes versus gene duplications, with both phenomena confounding gene orthology assignment. Interestingly, non-representative OGs, as well as OGs comprised of several gene families typically involved in microbial pathogenicity and/or the acquisition of virulence factors, fall predominantly within C2OG distributions. Conclusion/Significance Collectively, we determined the relative conservation and distribution of 14354 predicted ORFs from 10 rickettsial genomes across robust phylogeny estimation. The data, available at PATRIC (PathoSystems Resource Integration Center), provide novel information for unwinding the intricacies associated with Rickettsia pathogenesis, expanding the range of potential diagnostic, vaccine and therapeutic targets.

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Tick- and flea-borne rickettsial emerging zoonoses.

Philippe Parola, Bernard Davoust, Didier Raoult (2005)

Between 1984 and 2004, nine more species or subspecies of spotted fever rickettsiae were identified as emerging agents of tick-borne rickettsioses throughout the world. Six of these species had first been isolated from ticks and later found to be pathogenic to humans. The most recent example is Rickettsia parkeri, recognized as a human pathogen more than 60 years after its initial isolation from ticks. A new spotted fever rickettsia, R. felis was also found to be associated with fleas and to be a human pathogen. Similarly, bacteria within the family Anaplasmataceae have been considered to be of veterinary importance only, yet three species have been implicated in human diseases in recent years, including Ehrlichia chaffeensis, the agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the agent of human anaplasmosis (formerly known as "human granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent", E. equi and E. phagocytophila), and finally Ehrlichia ewingii, which causes granulocytic ehrlichiosis in humans. We present here an overview of the various tick- and flea-borne rickettsial zoonoses described in the last 20 years, focusing on the ecological, epidemiological and clinical aspects.

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Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Trop Med Infect Dis

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Trop Med Infect Dis

Journal ID (publisher-id): tropicalmed

Title: Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

Publisher: MDPI

ISSN (Electronic): 2414-6366

Publication date (Electronic): 11 June 2020

Publication date Collection: June 2020

Volume: 5

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 99

Affiliations

[1 ]Bacteriology, Sub-Department of Infectious Diseases, Department Biomedical Laboratory, Public Health Institute of Chile, Santiago 7780050, Chile; ttapia@ 123456ispch.cl (T.T.); rhflores@ 123456ispch.cl (R.F.); oduery@ 123456ispch.cl (O.D.); riglesias@ 123456ispch.cl (R.I.); paraya@ 123456ispch.cl (P.A.)

[2 ]Australian Rickettsial Reference Laboratory, Barwon Health, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia; JOHN.STENOS@ 123456barwonhealth.org.au (J.S.); graves.rickettsia@ 123456gmail.com (S.R.G.)

[3 ]Departamento de Epidemiología, DIPLAS, Ministerio de Salud de Chile, Santiago 8320123, Chile; maria.olivares@ 123456minsal.cl (M.F.O.); dgallego@ 123456minsal.cl (D.G.); johanna.acevedo@ 123456minsal.cl (J.A.)

[4 ]SEREMI de Salud Región de Los Lagos, Ministerio de Salud de Chile, Osorno 5290000, Chile; cristian.rosas@ 123456redsalud.gov.cl

[5 ]Zoonotic Diseases and Special Pathogens, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, MB R3E 3R2, Canada; heidi.wood@ 123456canada.ca

Author notes

[* ]Correspondence: jchormazabal@ 123456ispch.cl ; Tel.: +56-(2)-25755417

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John Stenos https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5465-2926

Johanna Acevedo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6341-1865

Article

Publisher ID: tropicalmed-05-00099

DOI: 10.3390/tropicalmed5020099

PMC ID: 7344882

PubMed ID: 32545152

SO-VID: d7bb28ee-913a-4dce-b601-0d148deab3e7

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Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Evidence of Q Fever and Rickettsial Disease in Chile

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MDPI: Coronavirus

Most cited references 24

Endemic Scrub Typhus in South America.

Rickettsia Phylogenomics: Unwinding the Intricacies of Obligate Intracellular Life

Tick- and flea-borne rickettsial emerging zoonoses.

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