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. 2015 Nov;93(5):990-3.
doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.14-0686. Epub 2015 Sep 21.

A New Clade of African Body and Head Lice Infected by Bartonella quintana and Yersinia pestis-Democratic Republic of the Congo

Rezak Drali  1 , Jean-Christophe Shako  1 , Bernard Davoust  1 , Georges Diatta  1 , Didier Raoult  2
Affiliations

A New Clade of African Body and Head Lice Infected by Bartonella quintana and Yersinia pestis-Democratic Republic of the Congo

Rezak Drali et al. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2015 Nov.

Abstract

The human body louse is known as a vector for the transmission of three serious diseases-specifically, epidemic typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever caused by Rickettsia prowazekii, Bartonella quintana, and Borrelia recurrentis, respectively-that have killed millions of people. It is also suspected in the transmission of a fourth pathogen, Yersinia pestis, which is the etiologic agent of plague. To date, human lice belonging to the genus Pediculus have been classified into three mitochondrial clades: A, B, and C. Here, we describe a fourth mitochondrial clade, Clade D, comprising head and body lice. Clade D may be a vector of B. quintana and Y. pestis, which is prevalent in a highly plague-endemic area near the Rethy Health District, Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogram of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene. (A) ML bootstrap with values greater than 75 located above the nodes. The mitochondrial clade memberships are indicated to the right of each tree. Lice samples positive for Bartonella quintana and/or Yersinia pestis and their genotypes (head or body lice) are specified (see legend at the top left). Specimens analyzed in this study are highlighted in black. The GenBank accession number, lead author, and locality are indicated for each louse specimen. Localities are abbreviated as follows: California (CA), Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Maryland (MD), Massachusetts (MA), Papua New Guinea (PNG), United Kingdom (UK), and Utah (UT). (B) Pathogenic bacteria transmitted by human lice. For head lice, only the DNA of some of these bacteria was detected.
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