Occurrence of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in three sympatric tick species in the South Moravia, Czech Republic

Anaplasma phagocytophilum is zoonotic gram-negative intracellular bacterium, which invades neutrophiles and causes febrile diseases. This bacterium is transmitted mainly by Ixodes ricinus in Europe. Due to lack of knowledge about prevalence of A. phagocytophilum in different tick species, our study was focused on hard ticks in the South Moravia. There are three hard tick species common in this region - I. ricinus, Dermacentor reticulatus and Haemaphysalis concinna. We collected 823 I. ricinus, 500 D. reticulatus and 37 H. concinna by flagging during 2009-2011 from 43 localities. We confirmed the presence of DNA of A. phagocytophilum in 3.8% I. ricinus (n = 31), 3.6% D. reticulatus (n = 18) and 29.7% H. concinna (n = 11) by nested PCR. All amplicons were 100% identical with sequences of A. phagocytophilum deposited in the GenBank database (accession numbers KX180948, KY11936 and KP245905, respectively). Despite the absence of clinical cases in the Czech Republic, human granulocytic anaplasmosis should be considered in patients with non-specific clinical manifestation and history of tick bite.