Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato seroreactivity and seroprevalence in the northeastern United States

Abstract

Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato, a relapsing fever Borrelia sp., is transmitted by the same ticks that transmit B. burgdorferi (the Lyme disease pathogen) and occurs in all Lyme disease-endemic areas of the United States. To determine the seroprevalence of IgG against B. miyamotoi sensu lato in the northeastern United States and assess whether serum from B. miyamotoi sensu lato-infected persons is reactive to B. burgdorferi antigens, we tested archived serum samples from area residents during 1991-2012. Of 639 samples from healthy persons, 25 were positive for B. miyamotoi sensu lato and 60 for B. burgdorferi. Samples from ≈10% of B. miyamotoi sensu lato-seropositive persons without a recent history of Lyme disease were seropositive for B. burgdorferi. Our results suggest that human B. miyamotoi sensu lato infection may be common in southern New England and that B. burgdorferi antibody testing is not an effective surrogate for detecting B. miyamotoi sensu lato infection.

Keywords: Borrelia burgdorferi; Borrelia miyamotoi infection; Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato; Lyme disease; New England; New York State; United States; bacteria; northeastern United States; relapsing fever; seroprevalence; seroreactivity; spirochete; tick-borne disease; ticks.

Figure 1

Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis purification (A) and Western blot analysis (B) of recombinant glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase (rGlpQ). A) Coomassie blue staining of purified Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato rGlpQ (lane 1) and of Precision Plus Protein Prestained Standards (Bio-Rad, Laboratories, Hercules, CA, USA) (lane 2). B) Western blot analysis of B. miyamotoi sensu lato�?"positive control mouse serum shows 39-kDa rGlpQ-specific band (arrow).

Figure 2

Western blot reactivity to recombinant Borrelia miyamotoi glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase in serum samples from 5 Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato�?"seropositive patients in the northeastern United States, 1991�?"2012. Numbers at the top of rows are patient numbers and correspond to patients 26-29 and 45 in Table 1. The letters a and c that follow patient numbers indicate acute- and convalescent-phase serum samples, respectively. Western blot results that show no seroreactive IgG and/or IgM band in acute-phase serum samples and a reactive IgG and/or IgM band in convalescent-phase serum samples are consistent with ELISA results showing a 4-fold rise in B. miyamotoi sensu lato antibody titer from acute-phase (negative) and convalescent-phase (positive) serum samples. The acute-phase serum of patient 28 was nonreactive for IgG in the ELISA assay (Table 1), but the sample was reactive for IgM and IgG on Western blot.