Investigation of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in Lipoptena fortisetosa deer keds from moose and roe deer in Lithuania

Deer keds are a blood-sucking ectoparasites belonging to the family Hippoboscidae. Anaplasma phagocytophilum is a tickborne gram-negative bacteria that causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis. The presence of A. phagocytophilum was previously confirmed in deer keds Lipoptena cervi (Buss et al., 2016, de Bruin et al., 2015). The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of A. phagocytophilum in other species of deer ked L. fortisetosa which share the same mammalian hosts with L. cervi. A total of 240 deer keds were collected from 4 moose (Alces alces) and 6 roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). Five specimens of those cervids (2 moose and 3 roe deer) were found positive for A. phagocytophilum. Identification of deer ked species was confirmed by morphological and molecular methods. The cox-1 gene sequences of deer keds obtained in this study were 93 – 99% identical to the L. fortisetosa sequences deposited in GenBank. Deer keds were screened for the presence A. phagocytophilum infection by a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique targeting the msp4 gene. All tested L. fortisetosa samples were found negative for A. phagocytophilum infectionBiologijos katedraGamtos mokslų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta