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Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Veterinary bacteriology: information about important bacteria
Veterinary bacteriology


Species/Subspecies: Borrelia burgdorferi
Categories: Zoonotic; motile
Etymology: Genus name: named after the French bacteriologist Amédée Borrel (1867-1936).
Species epithet: named after Willy Burgdorfer, who in 1981 found spirochetes in ticks from the area around Old Lyme (Connecticut, USA) and associated the finding to the disease (Lyme disease).
Significance:  [Very important]   
Taxonomy:
Phylum
Spirochaetota
Class
Spirochaetia
Order
Spirochaetales
Family
Spirochaetaceae 
Genus
Borrelia
Type Strain: B31 = ATCC 35210
Macromorphology (smell):
Micromorphology:
   
Borrelia spp. have a planar flat-wave morphology. B. burgdorferi is 0.33 x 10-20 µm in size with 3-10 waves. Has 7-11 periplasmic flagella (endoflagella or axial filaments) at each cell end and is very motile.
Gram +/Gram -:G-, difficult to stain
Metabolism: Microaerophilic
Catalase/Oxidase:
Spec. Char.:
Vector:
Borrelia burgdorferi  Borrelia burgdorferi  
Tick borne, in Sweden usually by Ixodes ricinus but can most likely also be transferred by Ixodes hexagonus
Disease:
HostsDiseaseClinical picture
HumansLyme borreliosis (Lyme diseaseSkin rash localised at the site of tick attachment, fever, headache and joint pain. In rare cases, chronic arthritis, muscle pain and neurological abnormalities.
Genome Sequence:
Acc-noStrainSize (bp)Genome
NC_001318 B31 0 910 724 1l + 21c&l 

16S rRNA Seq.:
Acc-noStrainNumber of NTOperon
M59293 (T) 1480 

Taxonomy/phylogeny:
 
About 40 different species have been described within the genus Borrelia and about half of these (among others B. afzelii and B. garinii ave been affiliated to B. burgdorferi sensu lato, which means B. burgdorferi in a wider sense. B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, in this context, means only the species B. burgdorferi.
Comment:The disease was first described in 1975.
Updated:2023-03-08

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