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Comparative Study
. 2008 Jan;74(1):153-7.
doi: 10.1128/AEM.01567-07. Epub 2007 Nov 2.

Fitness variation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto strains in mice

Klára Hanincová  1 , Nicholas H Ogden, Maria Diuk-Wasser, Christopher J Pappas, Radha Iyer, Durland Fish, Ira Schwartz, Klaus Kurtenbach
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Fitness variation of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto strains in mice

Klára Hanincová et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2008 Jan.

Abstract

Lyme borreliosis in North America is caused by the tick-borne spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, a zoonotic bacterium that is able to persistently infect a wide range of vertebrate species. Given the pronounced strain structure of B. burgdorferi in the northeastern United States, we asked whether the fitness of the different genotypes varies among susceptible vertebrate hosts. The transmission dynamics of two genetically divergent human isolates of B. burgdorferi, BL206 and B348, were analyzed experimentally in white-footed mice and in C3H/HeNCrl mice over a time period of almost 3 months. We found that the initially high transmission efficiency from white-footed mice to ticks declined sharply for isolate B348 but remained considerably high for isolate BL206. In contrast, in C3H/HeNCrl mice, high transmission efficiency persisted for both isolates. Our findings provide proof-of-principle evidence for intrinsic fitness variation of B. burgdorferi strains in vertebrate host species, perhaps indicating the beginnings of adaptive radiation.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Progression of B. burgdorferi BL206 and/or B348 host-to-tick transmission in four experimental groups of mice. Error bars indicate exact 95% CIs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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