Bartonella is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria. It is the only genus in the family Bartonellaceae. [2] [3] Facultative intracellular parasites, Bartonella species can infect healthy people, but are considered especially important as opportunistic pathogens. [4] Bartonella species are transmitted by vectors such as fleas, sand flies, and mosquitoes. At least eight Bartonella species or subspecies are known to infect humans. [5]
Bartonella henselae is the organism responsible for cat scratch disease.
Bartonella species have been infecting humans for thousands of years, as demonstrated by Bartonella quintana DNA in a 4000-year-old tooth. [6] The genus is named for Alberto Leonardo Barton Thompson (1871–October 26, 1950), a Peruvian scientist. [7]
Though some studies have found "no definitive evidence of transmission by a tick to a vertebrate host," [8] [9] Bartonella species are well-known to be transmissible to both animals and humans through various other vectors, such as fleas, lice, and sand flies. [10] [11] Bartonella bacteria are associated with cat-scratch disease, but a study in 2010 concluded, "Clinicians should be aware that ... a history of an animal scratch or bite is not necessary for disease transmission." [12] All current Bartonella species identified in canines are human pathogens. [13]
Bartonella infections are remarkable in the wide range of symptoms they can produce. The course of the diseases (acute or chronic) and the underlying pathologies are highly variable. [14]
Bartonella pathophysiology in humans | ||||
Species | Human reservoir or incidental host? | Animal reservoir | Pathophysiology | Distribution |
---|---|---|---|---|
B. bacilliformis | Reservoir | Causes Carrion's disease (Oroya fever, Verruga peruana) | Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia | |
B. quintana | Reservoir | Japanese macaque | Causes trench fever, bacillary angiomatosis, and endocarditis | Worldwide |
B. clarridgeiae | Incidental | Domestic cat | Cat scratch disease | |
B. elizabethae | Incidental | Rat | Endocarditis | |
B. grahamii | Incidental | Mouse | Endocarditis and neuroretinitis | |
B. henselae | Incidental | Domestic cat | Cat scratch disease, bacillary angiomatosis, peliosis hepatis, endocarditis, bacteremia with fever, neuroretinitis, meningitis, encephalitis | Worldwide |
B. koehlerae | Incidental | Domestic cat | ||
B. naantaliensis | Reservoir | Myotis daubentonii | ||
B. vinsonii | Incidental | Mouse, dog, domestic cat | Endocarditis, bacteremia | |
B. washoensis | Incidental | Squirrel | Myocarditis | |
B. rochalimae | Incidental | Unknown | Carrion's disease-like symptoms | |
References: [15] [16] [17] [18] [14] | ||||
Treatment is dependent on which species or strain of Bartonella is found in a given patient. While Bartonella species are susceptible to a number of standard antibiotics in vitro —macrolides and tetracycline, for example—the efficacy of antibiotic treatment in immunocompetent individuals is uncertain. [14] Immunocompromised patients should be treated with antibiotics because they are particularly susceptible to systemic disease and bacteremia. Drugs of particular effectiveness include trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, and rifampin; B. henselae is generally resistant to penicillin, amoxicillin, and nafcillin. [14]
Homeless intravenous drug users are at high risk for Bartonella infections, particularly B. elizabethae. B. elizabethae seropositivity rates in this population range from 12.5% in Los Angeles, [19] to 33% in Baltimore, Maryland, [20] 46% in New York City, [21] and 39% in Sweden. [22]
The currently accepted taxonomy is based on the List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN). [1] The phylogeny is based on whole-genome analysis. [23]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trench fever is a moderately serious disease transmitted by body lice. It infected armies in Flanders, France, Poland, Galicia, Italy, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Russia and Egypt in World War I. Three noted cases during WWI were the authors J. R. R. Tolkien, A. A. Milne, and C. S. Lewis. From 1915 to 1918 between one-fifth and one-third of all British troops reported ill had trench fever while about one-fifth of ill German and Austrian troops had the disease. The disease persists among the homeless. Outbreaks have been documented, for example, in Seattle and Baltimore in the United States among injection drug users and in Marseille, France, and Burundi.
Rickettsia rickettsii is a Gram-negative, intracellular, coccobacillus bacterium that was first discovered in 1902. Having a reduced genome, the bacterium harvests nutrients from its host cell to carry out respiration, making it an organoheterotroph. Maintenance of its genome is carried out through vertical gene transfer where specialization of the bacterium allows it to shuttle host sugars directly into its TCA cycle.
Bartonella henselae, formerly Rochalimæa henselae, is a bacterium that is the causative agent of cat-scratch disease (bartonellosis).
Tick-borne diseases, which afflict humans and other animals, are caused by infectious agents transmitted by tick bites. They are caused by infection with a variety of pathogens, including rickettsia and other types of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. The economic impact of tick-borne diseases is considered to be substantial in humans, and tick-borne diseases are estimated to affect ~80 % of cattle worldwide. Most of these pathogens require passage through vertebrate hosts as part of their life cycle. Tick-borne infections in humans, farm animals, and companion animals are primarily associated with wildlife animal reservoirs. Many tick-borne infections in humans involve a complex cycle between wildlife animal reservoirs and tick vectors. The survival and transmission of these tick-borne viruses are closely linked to their interactions with tick vectors and host cells. These viruses are classified into different families, including Asfarviridae, Reoviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Bunyaviridae, and Flaviviridae.
Bartonellosis is an infectious disease produced by bacteria of the genus Bartonella. Bartonella species cause diseases such as Carrión's disease, trench fever, cat-scratch disease, bacillary angiomatosis, peliosis hepatis, chronic bacteremia, endocarditis, chronic lymphadenopathy, and neurological disorders.
Relapsing fever is a vector-borne disease caused by infection with certain bacteria in the genus Borrelia, which is transmitted through the bites of lice, soft-bodied ticks, or hard-bodied ticks.
Babesia, also called Nuttallia, is an apicomplexan parasite that infects red blood cells and is transmitted by ticks. Originally discovered by the Romanian bacteriologist Victor Babeș in 1888, over 100 species of Babesia have since been identified.
Bacillary angiomatosis (BA) is a form of angiomatosis associated with bacteria of the genus Bartonella.
A rickettsiosis is a disease caused by intracellular bacteria.
Bartonella rochalimae is a recently discovered strain of Gram-negative bacteria in the genus Bartonella, isolated by researchers at the University of California, 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 Brazilian 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.
Bartonella quintana, originally known as Rochalimaea quintana, and "Rickettsia quintana", is a bacterium transmitted by the human body louse that causes trench fever. This bacterial species caused outbreaks of trench fever affecting 1 million soldiers in Europe during World War I.
Ehrlichia chaffeensis is an obligate intracellular, Gram-negative species of Rickettsiales bacteria. It is a zoonotic pathogen transmitted to humans by the lone star tick. It is the causative agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis.
Rickettsia conorii is a Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacterium of the genus Rickettsia that causes human disease called boutonneuse fever, Mediterranean spotted fever, Israeli tick typhus, Astrakhan spotted fever, Kenya tick typhus, Indian tick typhus, or other names that designate the locality of occurrence while having distinct clinical features. It is a member of the spotted fever group and the most geographically dispersed species in the group, recognized in most of the regions bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, Israel, Kenya, and other parts of North, Central, and South Africa, and India. The prevailing vector is the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus. The bacterium was isolated by Emile Brumpt in 1932 and named after A. Conor, who in collaboration with A. Bruch, provided the first description of boutonneuse fever in Tunisia in 1910.
Rickettsia parkeri is a gram-negative intracellular bacterium. The organism is found in the Western Hemisphere and is transmitted via the bite of hard ticks of the genus Amblyomma. R. parkeri causes mild spotted fever disease in humans, whose most common signs and symptoms are fever, an eschar at the site of tick attachment, rash, headache, and muscle aches. Doxycycline is the most common drug used to reduce the symptoms associated with disease.
Bartonella henselae hypothetical protein 11960 (BH11960) is encoded by the BH11960 gene. This hypothetical protein is conserved in all Bartonella species whose genomes have been sequenced to date, and are highlighted in the picture below.
Rickettsia felis is a species of bacterium, the pathogen that causes cat-flea typhus in humans, also known as flea-borne spotted fever. Rickettsia felis also is regarded as the causative organism of many cases of illnesses generally classed as fevers of unknown origin in humans in Africa.
Cat-scratch disease (CSD) is an infectious disease that most often results from a scratch or bite of a cat. Symptoms typically include a non-painful bump or blister at the site of injury and painful and swollen lymph nodes. People may feel tired, have a headache, or a fever. Symptoms typically begin within 3–14 days following infection.
Bartonella alsatica is a bacterium. Like other Bartonella species, it can cause disease in animals. It is small, aerobic, oxidase-negative, and Gram-negative. Its rod-like cells were localized within wild rabbit erythrocytes when first described. The type strain is IBS 382T. It is associated with cases of lymphadenitis and endocarditis.
Bartonella elizabethae, formerly known as Rochalimaea elizabethae, is a bacterium in the genus Bartonella. Like other Bartonella species, it causes the diseases bartonellosis.
Bartonella vinsonii is a gram-negative bacteria from the genus Bartonella which was isolated from dogs. Rochalimaea vinsonii was reclassified to Bartonella vinsonii. B. vinsonii contains three validly published subspecies B. vinsonii subsp. arupensis, B. vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii, and B. vinsonii subsp. vinsonii, and one effectively published B. vinsonii subsp. yucatanensis. B. vinsonii subsp. vinsonii has been isolated from voles and B. vinsonii subsp. berkhofli was isolated from a dog with endocarditis. B. vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii can cause diseases in humans. Those two subspecies are named after J. William Vinson and Herman A. Berkhoff.