Bartonella
species are fastidious bacteria that predominantly infect mammalian erythrocytes and endothelial
cells and cause long-lasting bacteraemia in their reservoir hosts. Reports that describe the epidemiology of bartonellosis
in Brazil are limited. This study aimed to detect and characterise
Bartonella spp DNA from cat blood
samples in São Luís, Maranhão, north-eastern Brazil. Among 200 cats tested for multiple genes, nine (4.5%) were
positive for
Bartonella spp: six cats for
Bartonella henselae
and three for
Bartonella clarridgeiae
. Based on the phylogenetic
analysis of four genes, the
B. henselae strain matched strains previously observed in Brazil and was positioned
in the same clade as
B. henselae isolates from the United States of America. Moreover, sequence alignment
demonstrated that the
B. clarridgeiae strain detected in the present study was the same as the one recently detected
in cats from southern Brazil.
