A low passage, infectious, and serum resistant B.
burgdorferi strain B31-5A4 (“B31-5A4”) or a high
passage, a non-infectious, and serum sensitive B. burgdorferi
strain B313 (“B313”) was incubated for 4h with the serum from
(A)
Coturnix quail (“quail”), (B)
chicken, (C) geese, (D) turkey, (E)
American robins (“robins”), or (F) Gray catbirds
(“catbirds”) at a final concentration of 40 % in the presence
(“OmCI-serum”) or absence (“serum”) of 2 μM
of OmCI. Note that the results from quail were derived from Figure 3. The heat-inactivated serum from the
above-mentioned animals was included as a control
(“heat-treated”). The number of motile spirochetes was assessed
microscopically. The percentage of survival for those B.
burgdorferi strains was calculated using the number of mobile
spirochetes at 4 h post incubation normalized to that prior to the incubation
with serum. The experiments were performed on three independent experiments;
within each experiment, samples were run in triplicate, and the survive
percentage for each experiment was calculated by averaging the results from
triplicate experiments. The result shown here is the average ± standard
deviation of the survival percentage from three independent experiments. (*),
the significant difference (P < 0.05) of the percent survival of
spirochetes between indicated groups was determined using the one-way ANOVA with
post hoc Dunn’s test.