Detection of Borrelia miyamotoi in Ixodidae Ticks Collected in the South of Western Siberia

Objective of the study was to assess the level of infection with Borrelia miyamotoi in ticks Ixodes persulcatus and Ixodes pavlovskyi collected in the south of Western Siberia. Materials and methods. 688 ticks I. persulcatus and I. pavlovskyi collected on the territory of Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo Regions were examined. Borrelia DNA was detected by a two-round polymerase chain reaction with specifc primers to the omp66 gene region, followed by sequencing of the isolated fragments and phylogenetic analysis, including the sequences of prototype isolates published in the international GenBank database. Comparison and analysis of nucleotide sequences was carried out using the MEGA 7 software package. In parallel, the samples were examined for the presence of the agents of transmissible infections – West Nile fever and tick-borne encephalitis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, bartonellosis and candidate pathogens of tick-borne rickettsiosis through RT-PCR and PCR with species-specifc and genus-specifc primers. Results and discussion. The genetic material of B. miyamotoi was found in 2.2 % of I. persulcatus and I. pavlovskyi ticks in the Tomsk, Novosibirsk, and Kemerovo Regions and their appurtenance to the Asian genotype was determined. It was revealed that the degree of similarity of the omp66 gene fragments within the group of isolates of the Asian genotype was 100 %. No relation between B. miyamotoi and a specifc vector species was identifed.