Stationary phase persister/biofilm microcolony of Borrelia burgdorferi causes more severe disease in a mouse model of Lyme arthritis: implications for understanding persistence, Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), and treatment failure.

Stationary phase persister/biofilm microcolony of Borrelia burgdorferi causes more severe disease in a mouse model of Lyme arthritis: implications for understanding persistence, Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), and treatment failure. Discov Med. 2019 Mar;27(148):125-138 Authors: Feng J, Li T, Yee R, Yuan Y, Bai C, Cai M, Shi W, Embers M, Brayton C, Saeki H, Gabrielson K, Zhang Y Abstract Although most patients with Lyme disease can be cured with a 2-4 week antibiotic therapy, about 10-20% of patients continue to suffer prolonged persistent symptoms, a condition called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). The cause for PTLDS is unclear and hotly debated. Borrelia burgdorferi develops morphological variants under stress conditions but their significance is not clear. Here we isolated the biofilm-like microcolony (MC) and planktonic (spirochetal form and round body) (SP) variant forms from the stationary phase culture of B. burgdorferi and showed that the MC and SP variant forms were not only more tolerant to the current Lyme antibiotics but also caused more severe arthritis in mice than the log phase spirochete form (LOG). We propose to divide the persistent Lyme disease into two categories: (1) early development of persistent disease from inoculation with persister/biofilm at the beginning of infection introduced by tick bites, or Type I persistent disease (i.e., PTLDS); and (2) late development of persistent dis...
Source: Discovery Medicine - Category: Research Tags: Discov Med Source Type: research