Biology of Borrelia species.

Abstract

TABLE 1. Borrelia species associated with diseases of humans and domestic animals % DNA Borrelia Sp.a Disease homology with Arthropod vector' Geographic distribution of disease B. hermsiib B. hermsii New World tick-borne 100 0. hermsi Western United States and Canada relapsing fever B. turicatae New World tick-borne 86 0. turicata Southwestern United States and relapsing fever northern Mexico B. parkeri New World tick-borne 77 0. parkeri Western United States and Baja relapsing fever California B. mazzottii New World tick-borne ND 0. talaje Mexico and Central America relapsing fever B. venezuelensis New World tick-borne ND 0. rudis Central America and northern South relapsing fever America B. duttonii Old World tick-borne 17 0. moubata Sub-Saharan Africa relapsing fever B. crocidurae Old World tick-borne 32-35 0. erraticus North Africa, East Africa, Near East, relapsing fever

Conversion of Borrelia garinii cystic forms to motile spirochetes in vivoNote

“…Similar and probably equivalent borrelial structures (so-called blebs, gemmae, spheroplasts, L-forms) were described even before this by different researchers (2)(3)(4)(5). Outer surface blebs and gemmae containing granular material were observed in borreliae as long as 50 years ago (6). These structures were associated with spirochetal cells undergoing degenerative changes in a hostile environment (ambient changes, antibiotic treatment, host immune defence activity -antibodies and complement, aging of in vitro borrelial culture etc.…”

Epidemiology of relapsing fever borreliosis in Europe

“…The louse-borne relapsing fever (also known as urban or epidemic RF) is caused by Borrelia recurrentis, and is transmitted by the body louse Pediculus humanus humanus. Historically, massive outbreaks have occurred in Eurasia and Africa, especially during wartime, when people were highly parasitized with body lice (Barbour & Hayes, 1986). Currently, the disease is found only in Ethiopia and neighbouring countries (Raoult & Roux, 1999).…”

Evidence of direct cell-cell fusion in Borrelia by cryogenic electron tomography

“…When more than seven flagella were present in a bacterium, the flagellar filaments can pile up in what appears like a bundle of multiple small flagellar ribbons (Kudryashev et al, 2009). We and others have also noted the presence of an additional surface layer surrounding the outer membrane of Borrelia that we first called amorphous slime layer, based on previous statements (Hovind-Hougen, 1984;Barbour and Hayes, 1986). Subsequently, the disappearance of this layer upon surface proteolysis using proteinase K demonstrated that it is composed of outer-surface proteins (Liu et al, 2009).…”