Talk:Microbiology of Lyme disease

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I believe the title of this article should be changed to inhibit confusion with the [Lyme disease] article. Maybe change the title to something that is more specific to a topic on the genus Borrelia. That, or find some way to merge with the Lyme disease article.--Manderson198 (talk) 00:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Microscope magnification
The image says it's 400x magnified, but this is meaningless for a photo that can be displayed on-screen at any size. The photo description should mention the true length of the bacterium or, even beter, have a scale bar. 194.171.68.132 (talk) 11:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

according to the book "the biography of a germ" by Arno Karlen, at 40,000X, shows the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi's interior clearly in the electron microscope, because in a light microscore may go as high as 13000X with which you cannot see the bacteriums interior. i'm sorrt if it is not very lucid, but describing, thats the best i can go. av: 30 march, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.178.193.97 (talk) 16:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

advancing immunology "further information" link broken
Under "Advancing Immunology Research", the "further information" link is now broken - the section in the main Lyme Disease article is now gone. I'm not sure where that went so I can't fix it myself. Dllahr (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Advancing immunology research
The culmination of these new and ongoing immunological studies suggests this cell-mediated immune disruption in the Lyme patient amplifies the inflammatory process, often rendering it chronic and self-perpetuating, regardless of whether the Borrelia bacterium is still present in the host, or in the absence of the inciting pathogen in an autoimmune pattern.[108]

I believe the journal article cited at [108] is non sequitur and does not support what is stated. The conclusion drawn in this article supports the presence of B. Burgdorferi in cases of Lyme arthritis "Lyme arthritis, the most common manifestation of late Lyme disease, has been associated with the presence of B. burgdorferi in the joint [105,106] It does not describe a self perpetuating cycle in absence of the bacterium.

Species and strains
Until recently, only three genospecies were thought to cause Lyme disease (borreliosis): B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (the predominant species in North America, but also present in Europe); B. afzelii; and B. garinii (both predominant in Eurasia). The 1988 Taber's Medical Dictionary states that good evidence indicated that the ailment was caused by a spirochete, viz., Ixodes dammini,after the tick host. Has this organism been renamed?

Putting this here as it seems relevant. I'm reverting an edit made recently by because it conflicts with the consensus of the medical literature. Only 3 main bacterial strains are implicated in Lyme Disease in Humans, while a number of others are known to infect ticks.

See discussion here.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 17:17, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Copied from my talk page to keep the discussion in one place:
 * Hi CatPath,


 * I just wanted to comment on the recent changes you made to the Lyme disease microbiology article. The reference you cited doesn't claim these 21 species are "Lyme-associated." It just says there are 21 species which make host of deer ticks. Most of these 21 species don't have any proof for pathogenic potential.


 * See below:


 * "Although the pathogenic potential of many of these variants remains to be established, recognition is an essential first step towards unravelling their ecological role(s) and pathogenic capability. Within this category are borreliae, including B. americana, B. bavariensis, B. bissettiae, B. californiensis, B. finlandensis, B. kurtenbachii, B. mayonii, B. sinica, B. tanukii, B. turdi and B. yangtzensis, which share their vector with known pathogenic species."


 * So I think it's actually pretty irresponsible to call these 21 species "Lyme-associated" since the majority of them haven't been associated with Lyme disease at all. They've only been associated with host ticks which also carry the pathogenic lyme variants. Let me know your thoughts here.


 * Also, I gotta say, the source that I used that you removed explicitly stated the number of main species which cause Lyme disease. See below:


 * "Nearly all human infections are caused by three B burgdorferi sensu lato genospecies: Borrelia garinii, Borrelia afzelii, and B burgdorferi sensu stricto. All three species cause Lyme borreliosis in Europe, whereas only B burgdorferi sensu stricto causes Lyme borreliosis in the USA."


 * This is very much in line with a consensus of the medical literature.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 17:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi Shibbolethink. I never intended to imply that there are 21 species of Borrelia that cause Lyme disease.  They are “Lyme-associated” in the sense that they form a genetic cluster that includes the three main species that cause Lyme disease.  “B. burgdorferi sensu lato complex” seemed overly complex for the lead.  As for the reference of yours that I removed, that was my mistake.  I thought you were providing a supporting reference for the existence of “37 species” of Borrelia.  CatPath (talk) 19:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Taxonomic changes for Borrelia, 2014 onwards
Just noting that since 2015, the Lyme-related Borrelia species have been separated in a new genus, Borreliella Adeolu & Gupta, 2015, a move which has been disputed by some (Margos et al., 2017) but reaffirmed by Barbour et al., 2017. References are:
 * Gupta, R. S.; Mahmood, S.; Adeolu, M. (2013). A phylogenomic and molecular signature based approach for characterization of the phylum Spirochaetes and its major clades: proposal for a taxonomic revision of the phylum. Frontiers in Microbiology. 4., available online at https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2013.00217
 * Margos, G.; Marosevic, D.; Cutler, S.; Derdakova, M.; Diuk-Wasser, M.; Emler, S.; Fish, D.; Gray, J.; Hunfeldt, K.-P.; Jaulhac, B.; Kahl, O.; Kovalev, S.; Kraiczy, P.; Lane, R. S.; Lienhard, R.; Lindgren, P. E.; Ogden, N.; Ornstein, K.; Rupprecht, T.; Schwartz, I.; Sing, A.; Straubinger, R. K.; Strle, F.; Voordouw, M.; Rizzoli, A.; Stevenson, B.; Fingerle, V. (2017). There is inadequate evidence to support the division of the genus Borrelia. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 67(4): 1081-1084.
 * Barbour, A. G.; Adeolu, M.; Gupta, R. S. (2017). Division of the genus Borrelia into two genera (corresponding to Lyme disease and relapsing fever groups) reflects their genetic and phenotypic distinctiveness and will lead to a better understanding of these two groups of microbes (Margos et al. (2016) There is inadequate evidence to support the division of the genus Borrelia. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. doi: 10.1099/ijsem.0.001717). International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 67(6): 2058-2067.

Since the ramifications are somewhat wide ranging (and also subject to some dispute as noted above), (and I am also a bit busy with other things at present) I have not changed the current article text but may do in the future, or others are welcome to do so. Regards - Tony Tony 1212 (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * yes I had noticed that as well. Since the name appears to be a bit controversial for now, I haven't bothered changing it. I'm agnostic on whether we should change article titles and text to be strictly in line with taxonomic authorities, or leave them as the most common name and just note the name change in the text. Similar examples are Vibrio fischeri (which we have at the taxonomically correct, but controversial name), Clostridium difficile (moved to Clostridioides but not commonly called as such), and Propionibacterium acnes (similar situation to V. fischerii). Maybe at some point we should have a discussion at WT:MICRO about it. Or maybe folks will just continue to boldly change titles and text as they see fit. Either way, thanks for bringing this up! If you decide you want to make the changes and need a hand, let me know! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 21:39, 25 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comment. BTW the present page name would not need to change since the genus Borrelia still exists as well as the new one Borreliella which contains the Lyme-producing subset of species, the others remaining in Borrelia. So Borreliella would need a new page of its own, with the relevant species moved there (the moved species will indeed require new names + pages, and thus need redirects from current pages under their old names - a reason why the work is somewhat non-trivial). Cheers - TonyTony 1212 (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Mass removals
- why? Almost all of that is valid and well sourced content on the subject of microbiology. My very best wishes (talk) 00:56, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * All changes were justified in the history. The changes removed content that wasn't relevant to Lyme disease microbiology, was unsubstantiated, or was outright false. Important to be cautious of non-human studies and use reliable secondary sources. WP:MEDPRI ScienceFlyer (talk) 01:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Alleged spore/cyst form
There's a lot of talk in the chronic Lyme disease community about an alleged "spore form" or "cyst form" of Borrelia that supposedly may be resistant to the usual antibiotics (possibly other forms too, such as cell-wall deficient forms), and people might check this page looking for information about whether that's true or not. It might be useful to have a section mentioning this and saying what the current consensus is about whether there is any such form or not (I'm not sure, off-hand). At the moment, whether or not Borrelia does have any variant forms seems not to be mentioned on this page, and Borrelia_burgdorferi seems to make only one brief mention of "cystic forms" which appears to be unsourced, added by Mic Goodwill. (It might be from "Colony formation and morphology in Borrelia burgdorferi".) Wombat140 (talk) 03:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)


 * This is a good review of the subject: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922218/ and this book chapter. I removed the part about cystic forms from the other article. ScienceFlyer (talk) 04:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Stuck it in. Wombat140 (talk) 02:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)