Molecular Investigation of Tick-Borne Haemoparasites Isolated from Indigenous Zebu Cattle in the Tanga Region, Tanzania

Aaron Edmond Ringo; Hezron Emanuel Nonga; Eloiza May Galon; Shengwei Ji; Mohamed Abdo Rizk; Shimaa Abd El-Salam El-Sayed; Uday Kumar Mohanta; Zhuowei Ma; Boniface Chikufenji; Thanh Thom Do; Xuenan Xuan

doi:10.3390/ani12223171

Molecular Investigation of Tick-Borne Haemoparasites Isolated from Indigenous Zebu Cattle in the Tanga Region, Tanzania

Animals (Basel). 2022 Nov 16;12(22):3171. doi: 10.3390/ani12223171.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro 080-8555, Hokkaido, Japan.
² Zanzibar Livestock Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Natural Resources and Livestock, Zanzibar P.O. Box 159, Tanzania.
³ Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, Government City Mtumba, Dodoma P.O. Box 2870, Tanzania.
⁴ Department of Internal medicine and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt.
⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry of Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Mansoura 35516, Egypt.

Abstract

Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are a major hindrance to livestock production in pastoral communities of Africa. Although information on tick-borne infections is necessary for setting up control measures, this information is limited in the pastoral communities of Tanzania. Therefore, this study aimed to provide an overview of the tick-borne infections in the indigenous cattle of Tanzania. A total of 250 blood samples were collected from the indigenous zebu cattle in the Tanga region, Tanzania. Then, we conducted a molecular survey using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene sequencing to detect and identify the selected tick-borne pathogens. The PCR was conducted using assays, based on Theileria spp. (18S rRNA), Theileria parva (p104), Theileria mutans and T. taurotragi (V4 region of the 18S rRNA), Babesia bigemina (RAP-1a), B. bovis (SBP-2), Anaplasma marginale (heat shock protein groEL) and Ehrlichia ruminantium (pCS20). The PCR screening revealed an overall infection rate of (120/250, 48%) for T. mutans, (64/250, 25.6%) for T. parva, (52/250, 20.8%) for T. taurotragi, (33/250, 13.2%) for B. bigemina and (81/250, 32.4%) for A. marginale. Co-infections of up to four pathogens were revealed in 44.8% of the cattle samples. A sequence analysis indicated that T. parva p104 and A. marginale groEL genes were conserved among the sampled animals with sequence identity values of 98.92−100% and 99.88−100%, respectively. Moreover, the B. bigemina RAP-1a gene and the V4 region of the 18S rRNA of T. mutans genes were diverse among the sampled cattle, indicating the sequence identity values of 99.27−100% and 22.45−60.77%, respectively. The phylogenetic analyses revealed that the T. parva (p104) and A. marginale (groEL) gene sequences of this study were clustered in the same clade. In contrast, the B. bigemina (RAP-1a) and the T. mutans V4 region of the 18S rRNA gene sequences appeared in the different clades. This study provides important basement data for understanding the epidemiology of tick-borne diseases and will serve as a scientific basis for planning future control strategies in the study area.

Keywords: PCR; TBDs; Tanga; Tanzania; indigenous zebu cattle; pastoral communities.

Grants and funding

Aaron Edmond Ringo is supported by a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for the RONPAKU program, Japan (20J20134). This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (18H02336) and the JSPS Core-to-Core program, both from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, and a grant from the Strategic International Collaborative Research Project (JPJ008837) promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan.