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Infection and Immunity, August 2002, p. 4701-4704, Vol. 70, No. 8
0019-9567/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.8.4701-4704.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
The omp-1 Major Outer Membrane Multigene Family of Ehrlichia chaffeensis Is Differentially Expressed in Canine and Tick Hosts
Ahmet Unver,1,
Yasuko Rikihisa,1* Roger W. Stich,2 Norio Ohashi,1 and Suleyman Felek1
Department of Veterinary Biosciences,1
Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210-10932
Received 28 January 2002/
Returned for modification 15 March 2002/
Accepted 23 April 2002

ABSTRACT
Sixteen of 22
omp-1 paralogs encoding 28-kDa-range immunodominant
outer membrane proteins of
Ehrlichia chaffeensis were transcribed
in blood monocytes of dogs throughout a 56-day infection period.
Only one paralog was transcribed by
E. chaffeensis in three
developmental stages of
Amblyomma americanum ticks before or
after
E. chaffeensis transmission to naïve dogs.

TEXT
Ehrlichia chaffeensis, an obligatory intramonocytic bacterium,
causes human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME), an emerging tick-borne
zoonosis (
1,
5,
19).
E. chaffeensis has been detected in field-collected
Amblyomma americanum ticks, white-tailed deer, and dogs (
2-
4,
6,
9-
17,
20,
21,
24). Although
A. americanum has been shown
to transmit
E. chaffeensis among deer (
7), development of an
easily accessible tick transmission model using the dog would
facilitate the analysis of molecular mechanisms of ehrlichial
transmission.
To date, only a few E. chaffeensis genes have been characterized. We recently characterized the omp-1 multigene families encoding outer membrane protein 1 (OMP-1)-immunodominant major OMPs of E. chaffeensis (18). A total of 22 paralogs are clustered in the 27-kb locus of E. chaffeensis. There has been no report of any protein gene transcription by E. chaffeensis in mammals or ticks. In the present study, (i) we analyzed the transcription of the entire family of 22 omp-1 multigenes in experimentally infected dogs and A. americanum ticks and (ii), since E. chaffeensis transmission from ticks to dogs has never been demonstrated, we examined whether E. chaffeensis can be transmitted from A. americanum to dogs.
Eight pathogen-free female dogs (1 to 2 years old) were used. All dogs were free of E. chaffeensis infection as determined by indirect fluorescent antibody and PCR tests of their blood specimens. Dogs 133 and 146 were each intravenously inoculated with 5 x 106 DH82 cells infected with E. chaffeensis Arkansas (low-passage 1993 stock). E. chaffeensis 16S rRNA was detected in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of both dogs by reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) starting on day 7 and continuing through day 56 postinoculation (p.i.) (8). A. americanum ticks at three developmental stages were attached to both dogs and removed as previously described (8). The remaining six dogs were used to reattach these infected ticks. Indirect fluorescent antibody tests, isolation of PBMCs, dissection of ticks, DNA and RNA extraction, RT-PCR, and PCR based on the 16S rRNA gene were described previously (8, 23).
The 22 pairs of primers that amplify the regions shown in Table 1 were shown to be specific for each omp-1 by PCR using 0.5 ng of purified E. chaffeensis DNA as template (Fig. 1A and B). By RT-PCR using these omp-1-specific primers, 16 omp-1 paralogs were found to be transcribed by E. chaffeensis in PBMCs from dogs 133 and 146 throughout the 56 days p.i., and transcripts of the remaining six paralogs were undetectable in either dog (Fig. 1C). To normalize levels of ehrlichial RNA present in the PBMCs at every time point in each dog, constitutively expressed E. chaffeensis 16S rRNA was amplified by RT-PCR in the linear range (27 cycles) using primer HE1-HE3 (2). E. chaffeensis 16S rRNA levels were slightly increased in both dogs from day 14 to day 56 p.i., and so was the level of expression of omp-1 paralogs (Fig. 1C). Without addition of RT, none of the RNA specimens was positive in the RT-PCR, indicating the absence of DNA contamination (data not shown). Ehrlichia canis, the agent of canine monocytic ehrlichiosis, is phylogenetically and biologically closely related to E. chaffeensis. This finding is similar to that with a p30-immunodominant major OMP multigene family of E. canis that has a gene structure and arrangement similar to those of the omp-1 gene family (18). Like omp-1 genes, the same set of p30 genes is expressed by E. canis in PBMCs regardless of the individual dog or infection time period (23).
E. chaffeensis 16S rRNA was detected in all 16 different groups
of tick tissues (salivary glands, midgut, or whole body of ticks
at three different developmental stages) using 16S rRNA prior
to (
8) and after attachment to six naïve dogs (Fig.
2),
indicating that the tick infection was stable. Of 22
omp-1 paralogs
examined by RT-PCR,
omp-1B was the only
omp-1 transcript detected
in all 16 groups of tick tissues (Fig.
2). Without RT, all of
these tick tissues were negative by RT-PCR using 16S rRNA or
omp-1 paralog primers, indicating the absence of DNA contamination
(data not shown). No ehrlichial 16S rRNA or transcripts of
omp-1 paralogs were detected in control uninfected tick tissues. It
was previously demonstrated that only one
p30 paralog,
p30-
10,
the ortholog of
omp-1B, is expressed by
E. canis in
Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks and that, of all 22
p30 paralogs examined,
only
p30-
10 expression is up-regulated in DH82 cells at 25°C
in culture compared to its expression at 37°C (
23). Present
results support our speculation that expression of
p30-
10 and
omp-1B, in
E. canis and
E. chaffeensis, respectively, is induced
in ticks, since the temperature is lower in ticks than in mammals.
To estimate the detection limit of the RT-PCR,
omp-1-specific
transcripts were generated in vitro.
omp-1B and
omp-1C were
selected as representatives, because
omp-1B was universally
expressed in both dogs and ticks (Fig.
1 and
2) and because
omp-1C was the weakest amplicon detected by the gene-specific
primers (Fig.
1B). The template for the transcription was prepared
by PCR using the following primer pairs: for
omp-1B, forward
primer 5'-
TAATACGACTCACTATAGGGAACGACAGCAGAGAAGGC-3' and reverse
primer 5'-GCGGAAACTTCTGGTGTG-3', which was 220 bp downstream
of the 3' end (nucleotide 16138) of the RT-PCR region; for
omp-1C,
forward primer 5'-
TAATACGACTCACTATAGGGCTTCAAGTCATGCTGATGC-3'
and reverse primer 5'-ATGATGGTGTAGCAAACGC-3', which was 301
bp downstream from the 3' end (nucleotide 17282) of the RT-PCR
region. The T7 binding site sequences of the above primers are
underlined. Specific transcripts of
omp-1B and
omp-1C generated
in vitro as previously described (
23) were 10-fold serially
diluted and used in RT-PCR against a background of the total
RNA from 2.5
x 10
6 uninfected dog PBMCs to mimic the experimental
conditions (Fig.
3). Under our standard RT-PCR conditions, 365-
and 230-bp cDNA fragments of
omp-1B and
omp-1C, respectively,
were detected to levels of 10
3 and 10
4 transcripts, respectively.
The detection limit per reaction of nested PCR based on the
16S rRNA gene was 48 fg of DNA from
E. chaffeensis-infected
DH82 cells (
8). This amount of DNA corresponds to 250
E. chaffeensis genomes in 2.5
x 10
6 PBMCs. All dog and tick specimens examined
in the present study were positive for 16S rRNA gene-based nested
PCR. This means that at least 250
E. chaffeensis genomes were
present in each specimen. Therefore, when the
omp-1 paralogs
were not detectable in these specimens by RT-PCR, the transcript
number was less than 4 to 40 per
E. chaffeensis genome.
To test
E. chaffeensis transmission from ticks to dogs, approximately
150 nymphs infected as larvae were placed on dogs BKF and AAX,
respectively; 50 and 60 adult ticks infected as nymphs were
placed on dogs 150 and 350, respectively; and 50 and 70 male
ticks infected as adults were placed on dogs 85 and 87, respectively.
Ticks were allowed to feed for 7 days and were then removed.
E. chaffeensis 16S rRNA was detected by RT-PCR in the PBMCs,
starting from days 15 to 36 through 153 (dogs 85 and 87) or
through day 159 (dogs 150, 350, BKF, and AAX) postattachment
(only representative time points are shown in Fig.
4). In addition,
groEL transcripts of
E. chaffeensis were detected using primers
described previously (
22) on day 35 or 36 in the 16S rRNA-positive
samples (data not shown), indicating that
E. chaffeensis was
transmitted among dogs by
A. americanum ticks.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is supported by grants RO1AI40934 and RO1AI47407
from the National Institutes of Health.
We thank Robert Hamlin, Debra Grover, and Nelson Orellana for providing dogs from Batelle, helping in the technical aspects of tick attachment, and helping in the blood collection, respectively.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Veterinary Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University, 1925 Coffey Rd., Columbus, OH 43210-1093. Phone: (614) 292-9677. Fax: (614) 292-6473. E-mail:
rikihisa.1{at}osu.edu.

Editor: J. T. Barbieri
Present address: Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafkas University, Kars, Turkey. 

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Infection and Immunity, August 2002, p. 4701-4704, Vol. 70, No. 8
0019-9567/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.8.4701-4704.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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