title: Clocking the Lyme spirochete.
abstract: In order to clear the body of infecting spirochetes, phagocytic cells must be able to get hold of them. In real-time phase-contrast videomicroscopy we were able to measure the speed of Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the Lyme spirochete, moving back and forth across a platelet to which it was tethered. Its mean crossing speed was 1,636 microm/min (N = 28), maximum, 2800 microm/min (N = 3). This is the fastest speed recorded for a spirochete, and upward of two orders of magnitude above the speed of a human neutrophil, the fastest cell in the body. This alacrity and its interpretation, in an organism with bidirectional motor capacity, may well contribute to difficulties in spirochete clearance by the host.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. stephen.malawista@yale.edu
authors.forename: Stephen E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Malawista
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Boisfleury Chevance
mesh_terms: D001792:Blood Platelets / Q000469:parasitology; D025065:Borrelia burgdorferi / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008193:Lyme Disease / Q000469:parasitology*; D018715:Microscopy, Video; D009043:Motor Activity; D010586:Phagocytes; D013144:Spirochaetales / Q000502:physiology*