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Transgenic functional complementation with a transmission -associated protein restores spirochete infectivity by tick bite

ByCanLyme Team

Abstract The relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia hermsii and the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto each produces an abundant, orthologous, outer membrane protein, Vtp and OspC, respectively, when transmitted by tick bite. Gene inactivation studies have shown that both proteins are essential for spirochete infectivity when transmitted by their respective tick vectors. Therefore, we transformed a vtp-minus mutant of B….

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New study released from British Columbia supports what patient groups have been saying since 1989

ByCanLyme Team

[CanLyme Note: In a quick review of this newly published paper it both gave us hope that progress is slowly being made, and a sense of sadness for the dismissive attitude shown patient groups by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC) since the late 1990’s. With the formation of the Lyme Borreliosis Society…

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The Borrelia hermsii factor H binding protein FhbA is not required for infectivity in mice or for resistance to human complement in vitro.

ByTeam

[CanLyme note: Currently, testing and symptomotology knowledge are not nearly accurate enough to distinguish between a human B. hermsii infection and a B.burgdorferi infection yet many people are told they do not have a treatable borreliosis simply because they do not have a positive Borrelia burgdorferi strain B31 when we have many other borrelia, and some we…

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Cotransmission of Divergent Relapsing Fever Spirochetes by Artificially Infected Ornithodoros hermsii

ByTeam

Paul F. Policastro,* Sandra J. Raffel, and  Tom G. Schwan Medical Entomology Section, Laboratory of Zoonotic Pathogens, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana 59840 Abstract The soft tick Ornithodoros hermsi, which ranges in specific arboreal zones of western North America, acts as a vector for…