Editorial : Coinfections of Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases

Lyme borreliosis (LB), caused by Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.), is the most common tick-borne disease (TBD) in the northern hemisphere. Beyond Borrelia, ticks can transmit other pathogens, such as Rickettsia, Babesia, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, viruses, etc. The last two decades have seen a sharp increase in TBDs with around 300,000 LB cases every year in the United States and 100,000 cases in Europe. Considering the low sensitivity of current diagnostics, we have only seen the “tip of the iceberg” with regard to the actual cases of TBDs. Ticks, deemed as the second most important arthropod vector of diseases after mosquitoes, often carry multiple species of pathogens and/or opportunistic pathogens, which can infect people simultaneously following the ticks' bite. In other words, it is called multi-species infections, or coinfections. With ticks able to transmit several pathogens in one bite, coinfections may be “the rule, not the exception.” Comorbid human infection with more than one tick-borne pathogen (TBP) is often detected worldwide. Coinfection is of particular human health importance and is getting increased attention due to the interaction of pathogen species within the host, which makes diagnosis and treatment more challenging. The B. burgdorferi s.l. infection can cause temporary human immunosuppression and has been documented to boost transmission of Babesia microti. Therefore, additional tick surveillance and awareness programs are required for early detection of the TBPs-risk to human health.https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiologyam2024Veterinary Tropical DiseasesSDG-03:Good heatlh and well-bein

Detection and differentiation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lyme disease caused by <it>Borrelia burgdorferi </it>sensu lato complex is an important endemic zoonosis whose distribution is closely related to the main ixodid tick vectors. In China, isolated cases of Lyme disease infection of humans have been reported in 29 provinces. Ticks, especially ixodid ticks are abundant and a wide arrange of <it>Borrelia </it>natural reservoirs are present. In this study, we developed a reverse line blot (RLB) to identify <it>Borrelia </it>spp. in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in 7 Provinces covering the main extensive livestock regions in China.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four species-specific RLB oligonucleotide probes were deduced from the spacer region between the 5S-23S rRNA gene, along with an oligonucleotide probe which was common to all. The species specific probes were shown to discriminate between four genomic groups of <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu lato i.e. <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu stricto, <it>B. garinii, B. afzelii</it>, and <it>B. valaisiana</it>, and to bind only to their respective target sequences, with no cross reaction to non target DNA. Furthermore, the RLB could detect between 0.1 pg and 1 pg of <it>Borrelia </it>DNA.</p> <p>A total of 723 tick samples (<it>Haemaphysalis, Boophilus, Rhipicephalus </it>and <it>Dermacentor</it>) from sheep and cattle were examined with RLB, and a subset of 667 corresponding samples were examined with PCR as a comparison. The overall infection rate detected with RLB was higher than that of the PCR test.</p> <p>The infection rate of <it>B. burgdoreri </it>sensu stricto was 40% in south areas; while the <it>B. garinii infection rate </it>was 40% in north areas. The highest detection rates of <it>B. afzelii </it>and <it>B. valaisiana </it>were 28% and 22%, respectively. Mixed infections were also found in 7% of the ticks analyzed, mainly in the North. The proportion of <it>B. garinii </it>genotype in ticks was overall highest at 34% in the whole investigation area.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this study, the RLB assay was used to detect <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu lato in ticks collected from sheep and cattle in China. The results showed that <it>B. burdorferi senso stricto </it>and <it>B. afzelii </it>were mainly distributed in the South; while <it>B. garinii </it>and <it>B. valaisiana </it>were dominant in the North. <it>Borrelia </it>spirochaetes were detected in <it>Rhipicephalus </it>spp for the first time. It is suggested that the <it>Rhipicephalus </it>spps might play a role in transmitting <it>Borrelia </it>spirochaetes.</p

Using Inertial Sensors in Smartphones for Curriculum Experiments of Inertial Navigation Technology

Inertial technology has been used in a wide range of applications such as guidance, navigation, and motion tracking. However, there are few undergraduate courses that focus on the inertial technology. Traditional inertial navigation systems (INS) and relevant testing facilities are expensive and complicated in operation, which makes it inconvenient and risky to perform teaching experiments with such systems. To solve this issue, this paper proposes the idea of using smartphones, which are ubiquitous and commonly contain off-the-shelf inertial sensors, as the experimental devices. A series of curriculum experiments are designed, including the Allan variance test, the calibration test, the initial leveling test and the drift feature test. These experiments are well-selected and can be implemented simply with the smartphones and without any other specialized tools. The curriculum syllabus was designed and tentatively carried out on 14 undergraduate students with a science and engineering background. Feedback from the students show that the curriculum can help them gain a comprehensive understanding of the inertial technology such as calibration and modeling of the sensor errors, determination of the device attitude and accumulation of the sensor errors in the navigation algorithm. The use of inertial sensors in smartphones provides the students the first-hand experiences and intuitive feelings about the function of inertial sensors. Moreover, it can motivate students to utilize ubiquitous low-cost sensors in their future research

Efficiency Improvement of Kalman Filter for GNSS/INS through One-Step Prediction of P Matrix

To meet the real-time and low power consumption demands in MEMS navigation and guidance field, an improved Kalman filter algorithm for GNSS/INS was proposed in this paper named as one-step prediction of P matrix. Quantitative analysis of field test datasets was made to compare the navigation accuracy with the standard algorithm, which indicated that the degradation caused by the simplified algorithm is small enough compared to the navigation errors of the GNSS/INS system itself. Meanwhile, the computation load and time consumption of the algorithm decreased over 50% by the improved algorithm. The work has special significance for navigation applications that request low power consumption and strict real-time response, such as cellphone, wearable devices, and deeply coupled GNSS/INS systems

Simultaneous detection of seven bacterial pathogens transmitted by flies using the reverse line blot hybridization assay

Abstract Background Traditional methods for detecting insect-borne bacterial pathogens are time-consuming and require specialized laboratory facilities, limiting their applicability in areas without access to such resources. Consequently, rapid and efficient detection methods for insect-borne bacterial diseases have become a pressing need in disease prevention and control. Methods We aligned the ribosomal 16S rRNA sequences of seven bacterial species (Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella flexneri, Aeromonas caviae, Vibrio vulnificus, Salmonella enterica, Proteus vulgaris, and Yersinia enterocolitica) by DNASTAR Lasergene software. Using DNASTAR Lasergene and Primer Premier software, we designed universal primers RLB-F and RLB-R, two species-specific probes for each pathogen, and a universal probe (catch-all). The PCR products of seven standard strains were hybridized with specific oligonucleotide probes fixed on the membrane for specific experimental procedures. To evaluate the sensitivity of PCR-RLB, genomic DNA was serially diluted from an initial copy number of 1010 to 100 copies/μl in distilled water. These dilutions were utilized as templates for the PCR-RLB sensitivity analysis. Simultaneous detection of seven fly-borne bacterial pathogens from field samples by the established PCR-RLB method was conducted on a total of 1060 houseflies, collected from various environments in Lanzhou, China. Results The established PCR-RLB assay is capable of detecting bacterial strains of about 103 copies/μl for S. aureus, 103 copies/μl for S. flexneri, 105 copies/μl for A. caviae, 105 copies/μl for V. vulnificus, 100 copies/μl for S. enterica, 105 copies/μl for P. vulgaris, and 100 copies/μl for Y. enterocolitica. The results demonstrate that the detection rate of the established PCR-RLB method is higher (approximately 100 times) compared to conventional PCR. This method was applied to assess the bacterial carrier status of flies in various environments in Lanzhou, China. Among the seven bacterial pathogens carried by flies, S. enterica (34.57%), S. flexneri (32.1%), and Y. enterocolitica (20.37%) were found to be the predominant species. Conclusions Overall, this research shows that the rapid and efficient PCR-RLB detection technology could be a useful for surveillance and therefore effective prevention and control the spread of insect-borne diseases. Meanwhile, the experimental results indicate that urban sanitation and vector transmission sources are important influencing factors for pathogen transmission. Graphical Abstrac