Data from: Genetic diversity of Bartonella quintana in macaques suggests zoonotic origin of trench fever

Bartonella quintana is a bacterium that causes a broad spectrum of diseases in humans including trench fever. Humans were previously considered to be the primary, if not the only, reservoir hosts for B. quintana. To identify the animal reservoir and extend our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary history of B. quintana, we examined blood samples from macaques and performed multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis. We demonstrated the prevalence of B. quintana infection was common in macaques from main primate centres in mainland China. Overall, 18.0% (59/328) of rhesus macaques and 12.7% (39/308) of cynomolgus macaques were found to be infected with B. quintana by blood culture and/or polymerase chain reaction. The infection was more frequently identified in juvenile and young monkeys compared with adult animals. In contrast with the relatively low level of sequence divergence of B. quintana reported in humans, our investigation revealed much higher genetic diversity in nonhuman primates. We identified 44 new nucleotide variable sites and 14 novel sequence types (STs) among the B. quintana isolates by MLST analysis. Some STs were found only in cynomolgus macaques, while some others were detected only in rhesus macaques, suggesting evidence of host-cospeciation, which were further confirmed by phylogenetic analysis and Splits decomposition analysis. Our findings suggest that trench fever may primarily be a zoonotic disease with macaques as the natural hosts.五日热巴尔通体（Bartonella quintana）是一种可引发人类广谱疾病的细菌，其中包括战壕热。此前人类被认为是该菌的主要（即便不是唯一）储存宿主。为明确五日热巴尔通体的动物储存宿主，并深化我们对其生态与进化历程的认知，我们对猕猴的血液样本进行了检测，并开展了多位点序列分型（multilocus sequence typing, MLST）分析。研究证实，中国内地主要灵长类动物中心的猕猴群体中，五日热巴尔通体感染极为普遍。经血液培养和/或聚合酶链反应（polymerase chain reaction, PCR）检测，328只恒河猴中有18.0%（59/328）、308只食蟹猴中有12.7%（39/308）检测出五日热巴尔通体感染。相较于成年动物，幼年与青年猴的感染检出率更高。与此前文献报道的人类体内五日热巴尔通体序列分化水平较低的情况相比，本研究揭示了非人灵长类动物体内该菌存在更高的遗传多样性。通过MLST分析，我们在五日热巴尔通体分离株中鉴定出44个全新的核苷酸变异位点以及14种新型序列型（sequence types, STs）。部分序列型仅在食蟹猴中被发现，另有部分仅存在于恒河猴中，这提示存在宿主共物种形成的证据，该结论进一步通过系统发育分析与分裂分解分析（Splits decomposition analysis）得到了验证。本研究结果表明，战壕热或许本质上是一种以猕猴为自然宿主的人畜共患病。