PubMed · 334048
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R C Johnson. 1977. The spirochetes.. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.mi.31.100177.000513
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DNAs from various Borrelia associated with Lyme disease were reciprocally hybridized. This genomic taxonomy method showed that Lyme disease agent comprised three genomic species. Two species could be differentiated by phenotypic characters as major proteins molecular weights and monoclonal antibodies reactivity. Western-blot with sera from patients suffering from different clinical forms of Lyme disease: arthritis, meningoradiculitis and Acrodermatitis Chronicum Atrophicans showed that each of these evolutive forms was preferentially associated with one of the species, respectively: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia garinii and Borrelia group VS 461. Furthermore, geographical repartition of these three species was heterogeneous. B. burgdorferi sensu stricto seems to be the only one present in the United States of America, whereas it coexists in Europe mainly with B. garinii in Western Europe and Borrelia group VS 461 in Northern Europe.
We analyzed the outer membrane (OM) ultrastructure of four pathogenic members of the family Spirochaetaceae by freeze fracture. The OM of Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue contained a low intramembranous particle concentration, indicating that it contains few OM transmembrane proteins. The concave OM fracture faces of Treponema hyodysenteriae and Borrelia burgdorferi contained dense populations of particles, typical of gram-negative organisms. A relatively low concentration of particles which were evenly divided between a small and a large species was present in the concave OM fracture face of Borrelia hermsii; the convex OM fracture face contained only small particles. As for gram-negative bacteria, the convex OM fracture face particle concentrations of these pathogens were low. These spirochetes cleaved preferentially within the OM, in contrast to typical gram-negative bacteria, which tend to fracture within the inner membrane. The OM ultrastructure of T. pallidum subsp. pertenue provides an explanation for the lack of antigenicity of the treponemal surface and may reflect a mechanism by which this pathogen evades the host immune response.
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