Folia Parasitologica 69:019 (2022) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2022.019

Molecular identification of Colpodella sp. of South China tiger Panthera tigris amoyensis (Hilzheimer) in the Meihua Mountains, Fujian, China

Hung-chuan Chiu^{1, 2}, Xiaoshuang Sun^{1, 3}, Yinli Bao^{1, 2}, Wenyuan Fu⁴, Kaixiong Lin⁴, Tengteng Chen⁴, Canyang Zheng^{1, 3}, Shixian Li¹, Wanting Chen¹, Cuiqin Huang ORCID...^{1, 2, 4}

¹ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory for the Prevention & Control of Animal Infectious Diseases &Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences, Longyan University, Longyan, Fujian Province, China;

² Engineering Research Center for the Prevention and Control of Animal Original Zoonosis, Fujian Province, College of Life Science, Longyan University, Longyan, Fujian Province, China;

³ College of Animal Sciences (College of Bee Science) Fujian Agriculture And Forestry University, Fuzhou City, Fujian, China;

⁴ Corresponding author

A three-year-old male South China tiger died in the tiger enclosure of the China Tiger Park in the Meihua Mountains on December 2018 after being bitten by a tick. This tiger presented clinical symptoms like whole-body severe jaundice, hepatosplenomegaly, kidney, and lymph node hemorrhages. The Colpodella sp.-specific 18S rRNA gene was detected using nested PCR. Interestingly, the DNA isolated from the blood of the tiger was found to be 100% similar to that of the tick by NCBI BLAST analysis. However, the DNA fragments isolated from the tiger's blood were 90.1% similar to the Colpodella sp. strain human erythrocyte parasite (HEP, MH208621) and 90.4% similar to the Colpodella sp. strain Heilongjiang (HLJ, KT364261). To investigate the species of ticks and ticks-carried Colpodella parasites in this region, the species of ticks obtained from the grasses outside the tiger enclosure and the species of Colpodella carried by ticks were identified. The DNA from ticks as well as that from the tick-borne Colpodella sp. were amplified from each tick using PCR followed by amplicon sequencing. In total 402 adult ticks samples were collected, among which 22 were positive for Colpodella sp. (5.5%), and the species were further determined by morphology, DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analyses. Interestingly, one Colpodella sp. was found to have 94.2% sequence similarities to the Colpodella sp. strain HEP (MH208621). This strain was previously reported to infect a woman in Yunnan, China. In addition, three Colpodella sp. showed 87-91% sequence similarities to the Colpodella sp. strain HLJ (KT364261), which was previously reported to infect human in Heilongjiang, China. This study disclosed the possibility of zoonotic transmission of Colpodella sp. by ticks in China. Finally, it provides a basis for urgently determining and monitoring the repertoire of ticks-borne piroplasmid pathogens, with the ultimate aim of strategic control.

Keywords: ticks, Yunnan, 18S rRNA, 16S rRNA, ITS2 rRNA

Received: June 29, 2021; Revised: May 18, 2022; Accepted: June 3, 2022; Published online: September 28, 2022  Show citation