Library · Microorganism
Borrelia burgdorferi
Make it clearer
Borrelia burgdorferi is a spiral-shaped bacterium known as a spirochete. In the United States it is almost always the cause of Lyme disease, and it does not reach people on its own: it is spread by the bite of a blacklegged tick of the genus Ixodes.
Inside the tick, the bacterium is not where you would expect. It lives in the midgut, far from the mouth. When the tick attaches and starts to feed, the bacterium makes outer surface protein C, which lets it invade the tick's salivary glands. It moves from the tick's gut to its mouth before it can cross over.
And once inside a person, the damage is not done by the bacterium itself. It is the body's own inflammatory response that injures the heart, the nerve tissue, and the joints; the spirochete has no known direct toxic effect.
In brief
In the United States, Lyme disease is almost always caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, spread by the bite of an Ixodes blacklegged tick.
It lives in the tick's midgut; when the tick feeds, the bacterium expresses outer surface protein C and invades the tick's salivary glands.
It moves from the tick's gut to its mouth before it can cross over.
Damage to the heart, nerve tissue, and joints comes from the host's inflammatory response; the spirochete has no known direct toxicity.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingLyme Disease, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated