Brazilian Spotted Fever is an important
tick-borne disease caused by
Rickettsia rickettsii and transmitted mainly by the
human-biting
tick Amblyomma sculptum. During an epidemiological
surveillance in Pedro Leopoldo, an endemic area of Minas Gerais
State, southeastern
Brazil, ectoparasites were collected from
vertebrate hosts and from the
environment. Rickettsial
genes were obtained from a
male A. sculptum and the resulting
phylogenetic tree grouped this bacterium with
Rickettsia sp. isolate Pampulha, a
strain closely related to the pathogenic species
Rickettsia tamurae and
Rickettsia monacensis. This is the first
report of sequences phylogenetically related to R. tamurae and R. monacensis infecting A. sculptum in
Brazil.