3.8 Rickettsia molecular identification
The 16S, gltA , ompA , and ompB conserved sequences carried by tick samples collected in this study were analyzed separately and found to be highly consistent with literature (Xu et al., 2019) (sequence similarities were >99%). Our results confirm that ”Dandong-type Rickettsia ,” which has the closest genetic sequence to Rickettsia in Heilongjiang, followed byRickettsia in Japan, were carried by the ticks. These results show that ”Dandong-type Rickettsia ” is widely distributed in the Changbai Mountain forest area.