Detection of pathogens in in northwestern Europe: evaluation of a high-throughput array.

Background: The geographic distribution of is expanding in Europe. Surveillance of this tick species and its pathogens is desirable, as it transmits pathogens of public and veterinary importance. A high-throughput real-time PCR-based array was used to screen 1.741 ticks from Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and Great Britain for the presence of 28 tick-borne bacteria and twelve protozoan parasites. The presence of pathogen DNA was confirmed by conventional PCR followed by sequencing.

Results: The array detected the presence of DNA from spp. (7%), (0.1%) (0.1%) (0.1%) (0.2%) (0.1%) (0.1%) (2%) (0.2%) spotted fever group (9.6%), or -like endosymbionts (95%) (0.1%) (0.2%) (0.9%) (5.6%) and (0.1%) Only the presence of and spotted fever group could be confirmed by conventional PCR and sequencing. The spotted fever -positive samples were all identified as .

Conclusions: We successfully detected and determined the prevalence of and in . An high-throughput array that allows fast and comprehensive testing of tick-borne pathogens is advantageous for surveillance and future epidemiological studies. The importance of thorough validation of real-time PCR-based assays and careful interpretation is evident.