Hongfei Shi ^1* Guoguang Li ¹ Dandan Li ¹ Hongyue Zhai ¹ Shidong Ji ¹ Yun Hu ² Long Wang ¹ Lunguang Yao ¹

• ¹ Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, China
• ² Nanyang Vocational College of Agriculture, Nanyang, China

To date, the primary hemoplasmas that infect cats include Mycoplasma haemofelis, ‘Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum’, and ‘Candidatus Mycoplasma turicensis’. Additionally, other hemoplasmas Mycoplasma species have been also identified in cats. In central China, no infections or potential vector with hemotropic mycoplasmas have been recorded in cats. To elucidate the prevalence of hemotropic mycoplasmas in both cats and parasitic ticks, this study investigated the occurrence of hemotropic mycoplasmas infections in ticks and cats A total of 78 blood samples from anemic and healthy cats, 284 ticks on cat body surface, and 356 enviromental ticks were obatained. Following the morphological and molecular identification of ticks, all samples were screened for pathogens using PCR detection and sequence analysis. The results indicated the presense of 392 Haemaphysalis longicornis, 152 Rhipicephalus microplus, and 76 Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu lato in cats and their environment. Molecular detection revealed the amplification of 156 ‘Ca. M. haemominutum’, 96 ‘Candidatus Mycoplasma haemobos’,41 M. haemofelis, and 64 Rickettsia felis positive amplicons from both cats and ticks. Notably, when comparing the infection rates of ‘Ca. M. haemobos’ in environment group, no significant differences were observed in the infection rates among the three tick species from anemic cats or healthy cats (P>0.05, α=0.05). Furthermore, sequence analysis of 'Ca. M. haemobos' indicated two novel sequence types which were most closely related to an isolate from buffalo in China. In conclusion, in this study in addition to ‘Ca. M. haemominutum’ and M. haemofelis, ‘Ca. M. haemobos’ was first detected in cats. ‘Ca. M. haemominutum’ appears to be associated with anemic syndrome in cats, while further research is warranted to explore the relationship between ‘Ca. M. haemobos’ and clinical signs in felines. Meanwhile, these three hemoplasmas Mycoplasmas were also found in three species of ticks, and transmission experiment is in need to investigate the capacity for transmitting hemoplasmas Mycoplasma among animals by these ticks.