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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1993 Aug 1;90(15):7371–7375. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.15.7371

Isolation and transmission of the Lyme disease spirochete from the southeastern United States.

J H Oliver Jr 1, F W Chandler Jr 1, M P Luttrell 1, A M James 1, D E Stallknecht 1, B S McGuire 1, H J Hutcheson 1, G A Cummins 1, R S Lane 1
PMCID: PMC47139  PMID: 8346258

Abstract

The isolation of the Lyme disease spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi) from the southeastern United States is reported. Three isolates, two from cotton mice (Peromyscus gossypinus) and one from the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), were recovered from Sapelo Island, Georgia, in July and September 1991. The spirochetes were characterized by indirect fluorescent antibody assay using a battery of five monoclonal antibodies, by sodium dodecyl sulfate/polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS/PAGE) of whole cell lysates, and by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay using primers for three DNA target sequences found in B. burgdorferi reference strain B-31. Transmission experiments indicate that the three Georgia isolates can infect experimentally inoculated hamsters and mice. Tick transmission of one of the isolates has been attempted so far; I. scapularis transmitted isolate SI-1 from hamsters to mice, but the lone-star tick, Amblyomma americanum, did not.

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