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. 1993 Jun;61(6):2396–2399. doi: 10.1128/iai.61.6.2396-2399.1993

Rapid dissemination by the agent of Lyme disease in hosts that permit fulminating infection.

C M Shih 1, S R Telford 3rd 1, R J Pollack 1, A Spielman 1
PMCID: PMC280861  PMID: 8500878

Abstract

We determined whether the agent of Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) disseminates more rapidly following deposition in hosts that permit fulminating infection than in hosts in which infection is relatively benign. Thus, individual infected nymphal deer ticks (Ixodes dammini) were permitted to engorge on the ears of C3H mice, and the site of attachment was excised at intervals thereafter. Infection in each mouse was determined by serology and by examining previously noninfected ticks that had engorged on these mice. These results were compared with data obtained similarly by using the CD-1 strain of mice in which the agent is relatively nonpathogenic. When the site of inoculation was ablated within 2 days after the infected tick became replete, dissemination was aborted. Spirochetemia could not be demonstrated in any of these mice. We conclude that Lyme disease spirochetes disseminate from the feeding lesion of an infecting tick more rapidly in certain highly spirochete-susceptible mice than in others in which pathogenesis is less severe.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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