Endosymbiont interference and microbial diversity of the Pacific coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis, in San Diego County, California
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Entomology, Microbiology
- Keywords
- ticks, endosymbiont, interference, microbiome
- Copyright
- © 2016 Gurfield et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Endosymbiont interference and microbial diversity of the Pacific coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis, in San Diego County, California. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2622v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2622v1
Abstract
The Pacific coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis Marx, is found throughout California and can harbor agents that cause human diseases such as anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and rickettsiosis 364D.Previous studies have demonstrated that nonpathogenic endosymbiotic bacteria can interfere with Rickettsia co-infections in other tick species.We hypothesized that within D. occidentalis ticks, interference may exist between different nonpathogenic endosymbiotic or nonendosymbiotic bacteria and Spotted Fever group Rickettsia (SFGR). Using PCR amplification and sequencing of the rompA gene and intergenic region we identified a cohort of SFGR-infected and non-infected D. occidentalis ticks collected from San Diego County. We then amplified a partial segment of the 16S rRNA gene and used next-generation sequencing to elucidate the microbiomes and levels of co-infection in the ticks. The SFGR R. philipii str. 364D and R. rhipicephali were detected in 2.3% and 8.2% of the ticks, respectively, via rompA sequencing. Interestingly, next generation sequencing revealed an inverse relationship between the number of Francisella-like endosymbiont (FLE) 16S rRNA sequences and Rickettsia 16S rRNA sequences within individual ticks that is consistent with partial interference between FLE and SFGR infecting ticks. After excluding the Rickettsia and FLE endosymbionts from the analysis, there was a small but significant difference in microbial community diversity and a pattern of geographic isolation by distance between collection locales. In addition, male ticks had a greater diversity of bacteria than female ticks and ticks that weren’t infected with SFGR had similar microbiomes to canine skin microbiomes. Although experimental studies are required for confirmation, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that FLEs and, to a lesser extent, other bacteria, interfere with the ability of D. occidentalis to be infected with certain SFGR. The results also raise interesting possibilities about the effects of putative vertebrate hosts on the tick microbiome.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Spotted Fever group Rickettsia and number of 16S rRNA gene sequences from each tick
Supplemental table 1. Spotted Fever group Rickettsia identified by rompA and IGR sequencing and total number of individual 16S rRNA gene sequences from each tick.
SourceTracker results for D. occidentalis microbiomes from San Diego County
Supplemental table 2. SourceTracker results for D. occidentalis microbiomes from San Diego County. EC=Escondido Creek; LC=Lopez Canyon; MT=Mission Trails, PC=Peñasquitos Canyon.