{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,8]],"date-time":"2026-04-08T05:49:35Z","timestamp":1775627375628,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]],"date-time":"2021-03-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1616025600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosntds.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS Negl Trop Dis"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bats can harbor zoonotic pathogens causing emerging infectious diseases, but their status as hosts for bacteria is limited. We aimed to investigate the distribution, prevalence and genetic diversity of <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> in bats and bat ticks in Hubei Province, China, which will give us a better understanding of the risk of <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> infection posed by bats and their ticks. During 2018\u20132020, 403 bats were captured from caves in Hubei Province, China, 2 bats were PCR-positive for <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic>. Sequence analysis of <jats:italic>rrs<\/jats:italic>, <jats:italic>flaB<\/jats:italic> and <jats:italic>glpQ<\/jats:italic> genes of positive samples showed 99.55%-100% similarity to <jats:italic>Candidatus<\/jats:italic> Borrelia fainii, a novel human-pathogenic relapsing fever <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> species recently reported in Zambia, Africa and Eastern China, which was clustered together with relapsing fever <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> species traditionally reported only in the New World. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and pairwise genetic distances further confirmed the <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> species in the bats from Central China as <jats:italic>Candidatus<\/jats:italic> Borrelia fainii. No <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> DNA was detected in ticks collected from bats. The detection of this human-pathogenic relapsing fever <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> in bats suggests a wide distribution of this novel relapsing fever <jats:italic>Borrelia<\/jats:italic> species in China, which may pose a threat to public health in China.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0009113","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]],"date-time":"2021-03-18T17:29:19Z","timestamp":1616088559000},"page":"e0009113","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pntd.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Human-pathogenic relapsing fever Borrelia found in bats from Central China phylogenetically clustered together with relapsing fever borreliae reported in the New World"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Ze-Min","family":"Li","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiao","family":"Xiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chuan-Min","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jian-Xiao","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiao-Lan","family":"Gu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Li-Zhu","family":"Fang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bin-Yan","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1669-6340","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Lian-Rong","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2665-3811","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Xue-Jie","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hui-Ju","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]]},"reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"pntd.0009113.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"369","DOI":"10.3201\/eid1203.050899","article-title":"Possibilities for relapsing fever reemergence","volume":"12","author":"SJ Cutler","year":"2006","journal-title":"Emerg Infect Dis"},{"key":"pntd.0009113.ref002","volume-title":"Bergey\u2019s Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria","author":"AG Barbour","year":"2018"},{"issue":"4","key":"pntd.0009113.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"847","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cll.2015.07.001","article-title":"Relapsing fever borreliae: A Global Review.","volume":"35","author":"SJ Cutler","year":"2015","journal-title":"Clin Lab Med"},{"issue":"1","key":"pntd.0009113.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"101300","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ttbdis.2019.101300","article-title":"Diversity of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species in Ixodes ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) associated with cave-dwelling bats from Poland and Romania.","volume":"11","author":"J Michalik","year":"2020","journal-title":"Ticks Tick Borne Dis"},{"issue":"9814","key":"pntd.0009113.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"461","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(11)60103-7","article-title":"Lyme borreliosis.","volume":"379","author":"G Stanek","year":"2012","journal-title":"Lancet (London, England)."},{"issue":"1","key":"pntd.0009113.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"46","DOI":"10.1128\/BR.29.1.46-74.1965","article-title":"Borreliae, human relapsing fever, and parasite-vector-host relationships.","volume":"29","author":"O. 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