Identification of Bacterial Communities and Tick-Borne Pathogens in Haemaphysalis spp. Collected from Shanghai, China.

Ticks can carry and transmit a large number of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses and protozoa, posing a huge threat to human health and animal husbandry. Previous investigations have shown that the dominant species of ticks in Shanghai are and . However, no relevant investigations and research have been carried out in recent decades. Therefore, we investigated the bacterial communities and tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) in spp. from Shanghai, China. Ixodid ticks were collected from 18 sites in Shanghai, China, and identified using morphological and molecular methods. The V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene were amplified from the pooled tick DNA samples and subject to metagenomic analysis. The microbial diversity in the tick samples was estimated using the alpha diversity that includes the observed species index and Shannon index. The Unifrac distance matrix as determined using the QIIME software was used for unweighted Unifrac Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA). Individual tick DNA samples were screened with genus-specific or group-specific nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for these TBPs and combined with a sequencing assay to confirm the results of the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. We found and to be the dominant species of ticks in Shanghai in this study. Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria are the main bacterial communities of spp. The total species abundances of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, are 48.8%, 20.8% and 18.1%, respectively. At the level of genus analysis, and carried at least 946 genera of bacteria. The bacteria with high abundance include , , and . Additionally, , , , , , , spp. and -like endosymbiont were detected in spp. from Shanghai, China. This study is the first report of bacterial communities and the prevalence of some main pathogens in spp. from Shanghai, China, and may provide insights and evidence for bacterial communities and the prevalence of the main pathogen in ticks. This study also indicates that people and other animals in Shanghai, China, are exposed to several TBPs.