Bartonella rochalimae
Encyclopedia
Bartonella rochalimae is a recently discovered strain of Gram-negative
bacteria
in the Bartonella
genus, isolated by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco
(UCSF), Massachusetts General Hospital
, and the United States
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
. The bacterium is a close relative of Bartonella quintana
, the microbe
which caused trench fever
in thousands of soldiers during World War I
. Named after Brazil
ian scientist Henrique da Rocha Lima
, B. rochalimae is also closely related to Bartonella henselae
, a bacterium identified in the mid-1990s during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco as the cause of Cat scratch fever
, which still infects more than 24,000 people in the United States each year.
Scientists discovered the bacterium in a 43-year-old American woman who had traveled to Peru
for three weeks. She suffered from possibly life-threatening anemia
, an enlarged spleen
, a 102 degree Fahrenheit (39 degree Celsius) fever, and insomnia two weeks after returning to the United States,
symptoms akin to those of typhoid fever
and malaria
. The patient's sickness was first attributed to Bartonella bacilliformis
, a known related species with a similar appearance under a microscope that is spread by sand flies
and infects 10% of the human population in some regions of Peru with Oroya fever. Antibiotic treatment based on this diagnosis rapidly cured her infection, but further investigation proved the bacteria were of a formerly unknown species. It is possible that other cases diagnosed as Oroya fever result from this species. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine
on June 7, 2007.
In this same year, Bartonella rochalimae was also isolated from 3 dogs and 22 gray foxes in a rural area of Humboldt County along the Trinity River corridor near the town of Hoopa in northern California, USA. The authors temporarily named
the new organism as Bartonella clarridgeiae-like since it was closely related to B. clarridgeiae, and no official name was yet suggested. The discovery was performed at the Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, and it was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in 2007.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1951249/pdf/2539-06.pdf
In March of 2009, a report of a dog with endocarditis due to Bartonella rochalimae was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.http://www.jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/47/3/787.pdf The 9-year-old male, neutered shepherd mix from San Francisco was referred to the University of California, Davis, in January 2000 due to lameness and obtunded mentation. Endocarditis was confirmed by echocardiography, and the dog died in August 2000. Analysis of the damaged aortic valve indicated that the dog was infected with a new Bartonella species, later confirmed to be Bartonella rochalimae by DNA analysis. According to the authors, this was the first time that B. rochalimae was identified in domestic and wild animals and the first report of B. rochalimae isolation from mammals in North America.http://www.jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/47/3/787.pdf
In May of 2009, Bartonella rochalimae was also identified by DNA sequencing infecting a sick dog at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The discover was made at the Vector Borne Diseases and Diagnostic Laboratory of the North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine, and was published in the Journal of
Clinical Microbiology.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2681825/pdf/0082-09.pdf
In July of 2009, Bartonella rochalimae was also identified in fleas from cats and dogs from Chile. The organisms was detected by DNA amplification performed at the Special Pathogens Laboratory of the Área de Enfermedades Infecciosas of the Hospital San Pedro, La Rioja, Spain, and it was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2744255/pdf/08-1570_finalL.pdf
Gram-negative
Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain crystal violet dye in the Gram staining protocol. In a Gram stain test, a counterstain is added after the crystal violet, coloring all Gram-negative bacteria with a red or pink color...
bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
in the Bartonella
Bartonella
Bartonella is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria. Facultative intracellular parasites, Bartonella species can infect healthy people but are considered especially important as opportunistic pathogens. Bartonella are transmitted by insect vectors such as ticks, fleas, sand flies and mosquitoes...
genus, isolated by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
(UCSF), Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
. The bacterium is a close relative of Bartonella quintana
Bartonella quintana
Bartonella quintana, originally known as Rochalimaea quintana, and "Rickettsia quintana", is a microorganism that is transmitted by the human body louse. This microorganism is the caustative agent of trench fever...
, the microbe
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
which caused trench fever
Trench fever
Trench fever is a moderately serious disease transmitted by body lice. It infected armies in Flanders, France, Poland, Galicia, Italy, Salonika, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt in World War I Trench fever (also known as "Five day fever", "Quintan fever" (febris Quintana in Latin), "Urban trench...
in thousands of soldiers during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Named after Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian scientist Henrique da Rocha Lima
Henrique da Rocha Lima
Henrique da Rocha Lima was a Brazilian physician, pathologist and infectologist. He discovered Rickettsia prowazekii, the pathogen of epidemic typhus. Rickettsia prowazekii was named after German zoologist Stanislaus von Prowazek.Henrique da Rocha Lima received his M.D. degree from the Medical...
, B. rochalimae is also closely related to Bartonella henselae
Bartonella henselae
Bartonella henselae, formerly Rochalimæa, is a proteobacterium that can cause bacteremia, endocarditis, bacillary angiomatosis, and peliosis hepatis. It is also the causative agent of cat-scratch disease which, as the name suggests, occurs after a cat bite or scratch...
, a bacterium identified in the mid-1990s during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco as the cause of Cat scratch fever
Cat Scratch Fever
Cat Scratch Fever is an album by Ted Nugent released in 1977, as well as the name of the album's title song. "Death By Misadventure" recounts the death of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Guitarist Derek St. Holmes came back during this album after he left...
, which still infects more than 24,000 people in the United States each year.
Scientists discovered the bacterium in a 43-year-old American woman who had traveled to Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
for three weeks. She suffered from possibly life-threatening anemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
, an enlarged spleen
Splenomegaly
Splenomegaly is an enlargement of the spleen. The spleen usually lies in the left upper quadrant of the human abdomen. It is one of the four cardinal signs of hypersplenism, some reduction in the number of circulating blood cells affecting granulocytes, erythrocytes or platelets in any...
, a 102 degree Fahrenheit (39 degree Celsius) fever, and insomnia two weeks after returning to the United States,
symptoms akin to those of typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. The patient's sickness was first attributed to Bartonella bacilliformis
Bartonella bacilliformis
Bartonella bacilliformis is a proteobacterium, Gram negative aerobic, pleomorphic, flagellated, motile, coccobacillary, 2–3 μm large and 0.2–0.5 μm wide and facultative intracellular bacterium.-History:...
, a known related species with a similar appearance under a microscope that is spread by sand flies
Sandfly
thumb|Sandfly biting a human's little fingerthumb|Sandfly biteSandfly is a colloquial name for any species or genus of flying, biting, blood-sucking Dipteran encountered in sandy areas...
and infects 10% of the human population in some regions of Peru with Oroya fever. Antibiotic treatment based on this diagnosis rapidly cured her infection, but further investigation proved the bacteria were of a formerly unknown species. It is possible that other cases diagnosed as Oroya fever result from this species. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine
New England Journal of Medicine
The New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...
on June 7, 2007.
In this same year, Bartonella rochalimae was also isolated from 3 dogs and 22 gray foxes in a rural area of Humboldt County along the Trinity River corridor near the town of Hoopa in northern California, USA. The authors temporarily named
the new organism as Bartonella clarridgeiae-like since it was closely related to B. clarridgeiae, and no official name was yet suggested. The discovery was performed at the Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, and it was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in 2007.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1951249/pdf/2539-06.pdf
In March of 2009, a report of a dog with endocarditis due to Bartonella rochalimae was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.http://www.jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/47/3/787.pdf The 9-year-old male, neutered shepherd mix from San Francisco was referred to the University of California, Davis, in January 2000 due to lameness and obtunded mentation. Endocarditis was confirmed by echocardiography, and the dog died in August 2000. Analysis of the damaged aortic valve indicated that the dog was infected with a new Bartonella species, later confirmed to be Bartonella rochalimae by DNA analysis. According to the authors, this was the first time that B. rochalimae was identified in domestic and wild animals and the first report of B. rochalimae isolation from mammals in North America.http://www.jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/47/3/787.pdf
In May of 2009, Bartonella rochalimae was also identified by DNA sequencing infecting a sick dog at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The discover was made at the Vector Borne Diseases and Diagnostic Laboratory of the North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine, and was published in the Journal of
Clinical Microbiology.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2681825/pdf/0082-09.pdf
In July of 2009, Bartonella rochalimae was also identified in fleas from cats and dogs from Chile. The organisms was detected by DNA amplification performed at the Special Pathogens Laboratory of the Área de Enfermedades Infecciosas of the Hospital San Pedro, La Rioja, Spain, and it was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2744255/pdf/08-1570_finalL.pdf