title: Detection of a Borrelia miyamotoi sensu lato relapsing-fever group spirochete from Ixodes pacificus in California.
abstract: We investigated whether host-seeking nymphs and adults of the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus Cooley & Kohls, the primary vector of Lyme disease spirochetes in far-western North America, are infected naturally with relapsing-fever group spirochetes in Mendocino County, California. Relapsing-fever group borreliae were detected in four (1.7%) of 234 nymphal and two (0.7%) of 282 adult host-seeking I. pacificus ticks by polymerase chain reaction and sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA and flagellin genes, respectively, exhibiting 99 and 98.5% sequence homology to Borrelia miyamotoi Fukunaga. Phylogenetic analysis based on these two genes revealed that the borreliae detected in these ticks belong to the relapsing-fever group and that these are closely related to, if not identical with, B. miyamotoi.
authors.affiliation: Division of Insect Biology, 201 Wellman Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3112, USA. jhmun@nature.berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Jeomhee
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mun
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Eisen
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Eisen
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Lane
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001096:Arachnid Vectors / Q000382:microbiology*; D001898:Borrelia / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002140:California; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry; D005408:Flagellin / Q000235:genetics; D018884:Ixodes / Q000382:microbiology*; D008018:Life Cycle Stages / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012061:Relapsing Fever / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000635:transmission; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D005408:Flagellin