Figure 6.

Injection of Borrelia sp. affects expression of irc3-1 gene. Adult unfed I. ricinus females were injected with four different species of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. complex (B. burgdorferi NE5264, B. burgdorferi CB26, B. garinii MSLB and B. afzelii CB43) or with sterile PBS, BSK-H medium as aseptic injection control and mock, respectively. Total RNA was isolated from the whole body homogenates, 12 h after inoculation, and transcribed into cDNA. Expression is shown in relation to elongation factor-1 as a housekeeping gene. Expression of other t-tep genes were not responsive to Borrelia sp. injection (Figure S1). The error bars represent standard errors from three independent biological replicates. Data were analyzed by non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test.