Estudos biológicos de Rhipicephalus sanguineus e interação Rickettsia rickettsii, R. sanguineus e cães em condições laboratoriais

Abstract

The bacterium Rickettsia rickettsii is the etiological agent of an acute, severe human disease called Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in the United States or Brazilian Spotted Fever in Brazil. The infection occurs through the tick bite. Reports of clinical illness on dogs due to this agent have been restricted to the United States. The brown dog tick or kennel tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus (Latreille, 1806) is the most widespread tick species throughout the tropics and subtropics. Biological studies on ticks are very important to the tick-borne pathogens transmission knowledge. For this purpose, the present study evaluated experimental infection of dogs with a Itaiaçu (Mogi das Cruzes/ São Paulo, Brasil) strain of R. rickettsii and some biological aspects of Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Initially, dogs were infected with R. rickettsii its susceptibility and the role of R. sanguineus as a vector was verified. In the second part the viability of adults ticks (R. sanguineus) on three different temperatures were tested. Ticks were maintained under the controlled conditions of 18 ± 1◦C, 27 ± 1◦C e 32 ± 1◦C e 80 ± 5% (temperature ± humidity) for different times without feed. The dogs were susceptible to R. rickettsii infection. R. sanguineus was able to acquire the pathogen and to transmit R. rickettsii to guinea pigs. Based on the second part s results, R. sanguineus viability is affected by both, temperature and unfed time.