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. 2012;6(6):e1652.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001652. Epub 2012 Jun 5.

Multispacer sequence typing relapsing fever Borreliae in Africa

Haitham Elbir  1 , Gregory Gimenez, Cheikh Sokhna, Kassahun Desalegn Bilcha, Jemal Ali, Stephen C Barker, Sally J Cutler, Didier Raoult, Michel Drancourt
Affiliations

Multispacer sequence typing relapsing fever Borreliae in Africa

Haitham Elbir et al. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2012.

Erratum in

  • PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2012 Jun;6(6). doi:10.1371/annotation/5b575a3d-79c6-4450-9410-225e554da42d. Haitham, Elbir [corrected to Elbir, Haitham]

Expression of concern in

Abstract

Background: In Africa, relapsing fevers are neglected arthropod-borne infections caused by closely related Borrelia species. They cause mild to deadly undifferentiated fever particularly severe in pregnant women. Lack of a tool to genotype these Borrelia organisms limits knowledge regarding their reservoirs and their epidemiology.

Methodology/principal findings: Genome sequence analysis of Borrelia crocidurae, Borrelia duttonii and Borrelia recurrentis yielded 5 intergenic spacers scattered between 10 chromosomal genes that were incorporated into a multispacer sequence typing (MST) approach. Sequencing these spacers directly from human blood specimens previously found to be infected by B. recurrentis (30 specimens), B. duttonii (17 specimens) and B. crocidurae (13 specimens) resolved these 60 strains and the 3 type strains into 13 species-specific spacer types in the presence of negative controls. B. crocidurae comprised of 8 spacer types, B. duttonii of 3 spacer types and B. recurrentis of 2 spacer types.

Conclusions/significance: Phylogenetic analyses of MST data suggested that B. duttonii, B. crocidurae and B. recurrentis are variants of a unique ancestral Borrelia species. MST proved to be a suitable approach for identifying and genotyping relapsing fever borreliae in Africa. It could be applied to both vectors and clinical specimens.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Distribution of spacers among the chromosome of B. duttonii and main differences within each spacer.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Maximum-likelihood tree based on five intergenic spacers sequences for 61 Borrelia strains.
To examine the confidence of ML tree, 100 bootstrap replicates were used.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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