Further studies are needed to
determine
whether humans can be affected by this newly discovered organism.
In
relapsing fever, tests are unreliable but spirochetes may be visualized
in the blood of infected patients. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877959X12000581
- Fig. 1. Borrelial cells (red) in salivary glands of molted A. geoemydae. Immunofluorescence assay (IFA) was performed as previously described (Takano et al., 2010). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)
A novel relapsing fever Borrelia sp. was found in Amblyomma geoemydae in Japan. The novel Borrelia sp. was phylogenetically related to the hard (ixodid) tick-borne relapsing fever Borrelia spp. Borrelia miyamotoi and B. lonestari. The novel relapsing fever Borrelia sp. was detected in 39 A. geoemydae (39/274: 14.2%), of which 14 (14/274: 5.1%) were co-infected with the novel relapsing fever Borrelia sp. and Borrelia sp. tAG, one of the reptile-associated borreliae. Transstadial transmission of the novel relapsing fever Borrelia sp. occurred in the tick midgut and the salivary glands, although Borrelia
sp. tAG was only detected in the tick midgut. The difference of the
borrelial niche in molted ticks might be associated with borrelial
characterization.
