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Characterization of ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia lotoris’ (family Anaplasmataceae) from raccoons (Procyon lotor)

¹ Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
² Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, Department of Population Health, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
³ Department of Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
⁴ University of Minnesota, Department of Entomology, St Paul, MN 55108, USA

Correspondence
Michael J. Yabsley
myabsley{at}uga.edu

Recently, a novel ehrlichial organism was isolated from a raccoon (Procyon lotor) and the isolate (RAC413) was infectious to two naïve raccoons but not laboratory mice, rats or rabbits. In this study, amplification and sequencing of four gene targets (16S rRNA gene, groESL, gltA and rpoB) confirmed that the novel ehrlichial organism was a member of the family Anaplasmataceae and was most closely related to, but distinct from, ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis’ TK4456^R and IS58. RAC413 shared the highest sequence similarity with members of the genus Ehrlichia (94.2–95.1, 80.9–83.1, 67.9–71.9 and 39.9–40.7 % similarity for the 16S rRNA gene, groESL, gltA and rpoB, respectively). No sequence variation in three sequences (16S rRNA gene, groESL and gltA) was observed between the RAC413 isolate and five additional sequences amplified from blood of naturally infected raccoons from several geographically isolated populations in the south-eastern USA. Serum samples from four experimentally infected raccoons did not react to Ehrlichia canis, Ehrlichia chaffeensis, Anaplasma marginale or Anaplasma phagocytophilum antigens in an immunofluorescence assay or an Ehrlichia ewingii peptide in an ELISA format. On the basis of the distinctive molecular and serological characteristics and apparent host specificity of this ehrlichial organism, it is proposed that this organism be designated ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia lotoris’ (reference strain RAC413^R).

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA, groESL, gltA and rpoB gene sequences of ‘Candidatus Neoehrlichia lotoris’ RAC413^R are EF633744–EF633747, respectively.

Details of reference sequences and similarity matrices for the 16S rRNA gene, groESL, gltA and rpoB sequences are available as supplementary material with the online version of this paper.