Borrelia miyamotoi strain LB-2001 retains plasmids and infectious phenotype throughout continuous culture passages as evaluated by multiplex PCR.
Ticks Tick Borne Dis
; 12(1): 101587, 2021 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33074149
ABSTRACT
Borrelia miyamotoi is a tick-borne spirochete of the relapsing fever borrelia group and an emerging pathogen of public health significance. The genomes of relapsing fever borreliae and Lyme disease borreliae consist of multiple linear and circular plasmids in addition to the chromosome. Previous work with B. burgdorferi sensu lato found diminished infectivity upon continuous in vitro culture passage that was attributable to plasmid loss. The effect of long-term culture passage on B. miyamotoi is not known. We generated a series of plasmid-specific primer sets and developed a multiplex PCR assay to detect the 14 known plasmids of B. miyamotoi North American strains LB-2001 and CT13-2396. We assessed the plasmid content of B. miyamotoi LB-2001 over 64 culture passages spanning 15 months and determined that strain LB-2001 retained all plasmids upon prolonged in vitro cultivation and remained infectious in mice. We also found that strain LB-2001 lacks plasmid lp20-1 which is present in strain CT13-2396. These results suggest that B. miyamotoi remains genetically stable when cultured and passaged in vitro.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Phenotype
/
Relapsing Fever
/
Borrelia
/
Bacteriological Techniques
/
Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Ticks Tick Borne Dis
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article