| Summary: | Rodents represent an important group of mammalian hosts as considered reservoirs for a large number of vector-borne pathogens. However, there still is a lack of knowledge on the occurrence and diversity of vector-borne pathogens of zoonotic importance in rodents from Baltic countries.The aim of the research was to investigate Bartonella spp., Rickettsia spp. and Babesia spp. prevalence and genetic diversity in various species of rodents captured in Lithuania. Rodents representing eight species – Apodemus flavicollis, Apodemus agrarius, Mus musculus, Micromys minutus, Myodes glareolus, Microtus oeconomus, Microtus agrestis and Microtus arvalis were trapped with live-traps or snap traps in 19 locations of Lithuania during 2013–2016. DNA was extracted from the spleen samples of rodents. Conventional, nested and real-time PCR were used to amplify different genome regions of Bartonella (ssrA, rpoB, groEL and 16S-23S ITS), Rickettsia (gltA and17kDa) and Babesia (18S rRNA) with subsequent sequence analysis. The present study demonstrates that Lithuanian rodents are frequently infected with Bartonella (54.8%), and Rickettsia (28.3%) pathogens and rarely infected with Babesia parasites (2.8%). Sequence analysis of Babesia, Rickettsia and Bartonella isolates showed the presence of Babesia microti, Rickettsia helvetica and multiple Bartonella species belonging to six clades associated with human pathogenic Bartonella grahamii, Bartonella rochalimae and Bartonella tribocorum species, and other species Bartonella taylorii, Bartonella coopersplainsensis and Bartonella doshiae which pathogenicity to humans is still unknown.The findings of our study demonstrated the importance of rodents as considered reservoirs of these vector-borne zoonotic pathogens in Lithuania Aplinkotyros katedra Biologijos katedra Gamtos tyrimų centras Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas
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