Fig 7.
Detection of spirochete burdens in C3H mice infected via tick bite, using qRT-PCR. At day 14 after tick feeding, mice were sacrificed and tissues (skin, heart, joint, and bladder) collected for RNA isolations and then subjected to qRT-PCR analysis as described in the legend to Fig. 4. The data shown here are the results for skin and heart tissues. No trace of flaB message was detected in the mouse tissues infected by cheA2mut; since its PCR cycle thresholds (CT) are higher than that of the negative controls (no transcriptase added), it is considered negative.