Typing African Relapsing Fever Spirochetes

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Scott, Julie Christine ; Wright, David Julian Maurice ; Cutler, Sally Jane
• Description:
  Relapsing fever Borrelia spp. challenge microbiologic typing because they possess segmented genomes that maintain essential genes on large linear plasmids. Antigenic variation further complicates typing. Intergenic spacer (IGS, between 16S-23S genes) heterogeneity provides resolution among Lyme disease-associated and some relapsing fever spirochetes. We used an IGS fragment for typing East African relapsing fever Borrelia spp. Borrelia recurrentis and their louse vectors showed 2 sequence types, while 4 B. duttonii and their tick vectors had 4 types. IGS typing was unable to discriminate between the tick- and louseborne forms of disease. B. crocidurae, also present in Africa, was clearly resolved from the B. recurrentis/B. duttonii complex. IGS analysis of ticks showed relapsing fever Borrelia spp. and a unique clade, distant from those associated with relapsing fever, possibly equivalent to a novel species in ticks from this region. Clinical significance of this spirochete is undetermined.
• Subjects:
  Animals Arthropod Vectors Bacterial Typing Techniques Blood Borrelia DNA, Bacterial DNA, Ribosomal Spacer Humans Insect Vectors Molecular Sequence Data Phthiraptera Relapsing Fever Research RNA, Ribosomal, 16S RNA, Ribosomal, 23S Sequence Analysis, DNA Tick-Borne Diseases Ticks

  More +
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 11(11):1722-1729.
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ethiopia ; Tanzania
• Location:
  Africa
• Volume:
  11
• Issue:
  11
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f5866a25206fcc3e2a5ecdf125edf0563f749f10c80a591487c7a6efd719f60e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/15909/cdc_15909_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 197.78 KB ]