Publication details
Identification of Staphylococcus spp. isolated from ixodid ticks.
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2008 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | A group of eight Gram-positive, catalase positive cocci was isolated during analysis of cultivable microflora of ixodid ticks, namely Ixodes ricinus, Dermacentor reticulatus and Haemaphysalis concinna, vectors of many vertebrate pathogens. Analysed strains were isolated from whole-body homogenized surface-sterilized ticks inoculated on different kinds of media: Tryptone Soya Agar, Brain-Heart Infusion Agar and Columbia Blood Agar. Individual colonies were picked up, purified and preliminary identified by using rep-PCR fingerprinting with the primer (GTG)5. This method assigned three strains as Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus (DR11, HC37, HC48), two strains as Staphylococcus warneri (HC13, HC36) and the remaining strains represented Staphylococcus cohnii subsp. cohnii (DR8), Staphylococcus epidermidis (HC34) and Staphylococcus capitis subsp. capitis (HC31). These results were verified by automated ribotyping with EcoRI (RiboPrinter microbial characterization system) as well as whole-cell protein fingerprinting and confirmed the (GTG)5-PCR fingerprinting as a fast and reliable tool for identification of staphylococci. Biotyping using API ID 32 Staph kit misidentified S. cohnii subsp. cohnii (DR8) as Staphylococcus xylosus and S. warneri (HC13) as Staphylococcus haemolyticus. Two strains (DR11 and DR8) originated from Dermacentor reticulatus and the remaining strains were isolated from Haemaphysalis concinna. Interestingly, no staphylococci were isolated from Ixodes ricinus in our study. There is no evidence that staphylococci isolated in our study create integral part of tick internal microflora, obviously they are ingested incidentally during tick feeding on vertebrate host and they could survive in tick midgut. Financial support from project KJB600930613 is gratefully acknowledged. |
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