Fifty-nine Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato culture isolates collected from northeastern China were characterized by 5S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis and reactivity with monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). Among 59 culture isolates, 30 (50.8%) were Borrelia garinii and 17 (28.8%) were Borrelia afzelii, 2 were mixtures composed of B. garinii with RF...

In Europe the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex is represented by five distinct genospecies: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia garinii, Borrelia valaisiana, and Borrelia lusitaniae. These taxonomic entities are known to differ in their specific associations with vertebrate hosts and to provoke distinct clinical manifestations in human patients. However, except...

tick-borne diseases like tick-borne relapsing fever are a public health problem in iran. its occurrence is more prevalent in north part of country. in order to determine the distribution of soft ticks, argasidae, and their infection with borrelia species in hamadan province, 53 villages were selected randomly. a total of 4805 ticks were collected directly from human dwellings, poultries, and an...

background: west azerbaijan is considered as a main region for domestic animal breeding. due to importance of herd as a main host and ticks as a vector of relapsing fever and cchf, a comprehensive study was undertaken in the region. methods: outdoor, indoor collection as well as ticks stick to the animals' body were collected and identified. the study was conducted during the whole seasons in 2...

BACKGROUND Morphea is an inflammatory autoimmune skin sclerosis of unknown etiology. A causative role of Borrelia burgdorferi infection has been controversially discussed, but no conclusive solution has yet been achieved. OBJECTIVE Intrigued by 3 young patients with severe Borrelia-associated morphea and high-titer antinuclear antibodies, we retrospectively examined the relationship between B...

AIM Here we investigated the role of complement activation in phagocytosis and the release of cytokines and chemokines in response to two clinical isolates: Borrelia afzelii K78, which is resistant to complement-mediated lysis, and Borrelia garinii LU59, which is complement-sensitive. METHODS Borrelia spirochetes were incubated in hirudin plasma, or hirudin-anticoagulated whole blood. Complem...

To clarify the taxonomic status of two recently described Borrelia genomic groups, groups VS116 and M19, three group VS116 strains and eight group M19 strains isolated from Ixodes ricinus ticks in Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom were characterized. PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the 5S-23S intergenic spacer amplicon, rRNA gene restriction an...

Species of the genus Borrelia cause human and animal infections, including Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and epizootic bovine abortion. The borrelial genome is unique among bacterial genomes in that it is composed of a linear chromosome and a series of linear and circular plasmids. The plasmids exhibit significant genetic redundancy and carry 175 paralogous gene families, most of unknown funct...

We have cloned and sequenced the flagellin gene from Borrelia miyamotoi strain HT31 and compared it with previously published flagellin sequences. Sequence similarity analysis demonstrated that strain HT31 is phylogenetically distant from the three species of Lyme disease borreliae is deeply branched into the relapsing fever borrelia cluster. The result was in full agreement with the classifica...