Lymphocyte blastogenesis assays and immunoblotting were used to investigate and compare murine B-cell responses to preparations of extracellular membrane blebs (BAg) and spirochetes (Ag) of Borrelia burgdorferi. Immunoblotting BAg, Ag, and medium control preparations with serum from naive and infected C57BL/10 mice revealed that BAg and Ag had similar specific reactivity profiles except that ma...

The numbers of host-adapted Borrelia burgdorferi (HAB) organisms in rabbit skin were assessed by real-time PCR over the first 3 weeks of infection. Maximal numbers were found at day 11, while spirochete numbers decreased by more than 30-fold by day 21. The antigenic composition of HAB in skin biopsy samples was determined by use of a procedure termed hydrophobic antigen tissue Triton extraction...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of a commercial immunoblot (IgG and IgM BAG-Borrelia blot) in the serologic diagnosis of the early stages of Lyme disease. A total of 42 sera from patients with Lyme disease (24 patients with localized early stage (LES) and 18 patients with disseminated early stage (DES)) and 129 sera from patients with non-Lyme diseases (specificity control ...

Altitudinal distributions, population structures and seasonal dynamics of tick fauna at three localities in Continental Croatia (Medvednica Papuk) an alpine biogeographic region (Gorski Kotar) were studied. Sampling questing ticks was performed twice a year (spring autumn, from 2019 to 2021) different altitudes (200, 400, 600, 800 1000 m above sea level) using the flagging method. In total, 294...

OBJECTIVE Western blotting (WB; immunoblotting) is a widely used tool for the serodiagnosis of Lyme borreliosis (LB), but so far, no generally accepted criteria for its performance and interpretation have been established in China. The present study was designed to determine the criteria for standardized Western blot for the predominant species of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in China, in wh...

Testing for Borrelia burgdorferi (BB), the spirochetal agent of Lyme disease, is problematic due to poor sensitivity of commercially available serological tests. We evaluated an in-house Western Blot (WB) prepared with a mixture of two strains of BB, B31 and 297. Sensitivity and specificity of IgG and IgM testing using the two-strain WB was compared to testing with a commercial single-strain WB...