Fig. 1.

Flow-chart of complement activation in lepirudin plasma with live Borrelia spirochetes and following determination of C3a and sC5b-9 with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. We performed our complement activation experiments in duplicates. When determining C3a and sC5b-9, we ran each activation duplicate in duplicates. The average concentration of each complement marker minus the background were thereafter used in the statistical analysis. SB, subclinical individuals; LNB, Lyme neuroborreliosis patients; 0, negative/background control; lepirudin plasma without addition of spirochetes