| Summary: | <i>Anaplasma phagocytophilum</i> causes tick-borne fever in small ruminants. Recently, novel <i>Anaplasma</i> variants related to <i>A. phagocytophilum</i> have been reported in ruminants from Tunisia, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and China. Based on <i>16S rRNA</i> and <i>groEL</i> genes and sequencing, we screened the frequency of <i>A. phagocytophilum</i> and related variants in 433 apparently healthy small ruminants in Turkey. <i>Anaplasma</i> spp. overall infection rates were 27.9% (121/433 analyzed samples). The frequency of <i>A. phagocytophilum</i> and <i>A. phagocytophilum</i>-like 1 infections was 1.4% and 26.5%, respectively. No <i>A. phagocytophilum</i>-like 2 was detected in the tested animals. The prevalence of <i>Anaplasma</i> spp. was comparable in species, and no significant difference was detected between sheep and goats, whereas the prevalence significantly increased with tick infestation. Sequencing confirmed PCR-RFLP data and showed the presence of <i>A. phagocytophilum</i> and <i>A. phagocytophilum</i>-like-1 variant in the sampled animals. Phylogeny-based on <i>16S rRNA</i> gene revealed the <i>A. phagocytophilum</i>-like 1 in a separate clade together with the previous isolates detected in small ruminants and ticks. In this work, <i>A. phagocytophilum</i>-like 1 has been detected for the first time in sheep and goats from Turkey. This finding revealed that the variant should be considered in the diagnosis of caprine and ovine anaplasmosis.
|
|---|
