Molecular detection of Ehrlichia chaffeensis and a divergent Anaplasma lineage in free-ranging anteaters from southeastern Brazil

Bacteria of the family Anaplasmataceae are tick-borne pathogens of recognized veterinary and zoonotic relevance, widely distributed among domestic and wild vertebrate hosts. Although increasingly reported in Brazilian wildlife species, molecular data on these agents in xenarthrans remain scarce, particularly in regions undergoing intense environmental transformation. This study investigated the occurrence of Anaplasma spp. and Ehrlichia spp. in free-ranging giant anteaters ( Myrmecophaga tridactyla ), a threatened species in Brazil, and southern tamanduas ( Tamandua tetradactyla ) from the central-western region of São Paulo state, Brazil. Twenty-six blood samples (21 M. tridactyla and 5 T. tetradactyla ) were analyzed using conventional and nested PCR assays targeting the 23S rRNA gene ( Anaplasma spp.) and the dsb gene ( Ehrlichia spp.), followed by sequencing and phylogenetic inference. Ehrlichia chaffeensis DNA was detected in two M. tridactyla samples (7.69%), whereas Anaplasma DNA was detected in one T. tetradactyla sample (3.85%). The E. chaffeensis sequences showed high nucleotide identity (99.6–100%) with reference strains and clustered within well-supported clades in Maximum Likelihood analyses, supporting species-level identification. The Anaplasma sequence displayed high similarity to uncultured Anaplasma spp. clones and grouped phylogenetically near Anaplasma marginale and Anaplasma centrale . These findings provide molecular evidence of the circulation of Anaplasmataceae in free-ranging xenarthrans and suggest that these hosts may participate in sylvatic transmission networks of zoonotic tick-borne pathogens in anthropogenically altered landscapes in southeastern Brazil.