title: Lyme disease spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi does not require thiamin.
abstract: Thiamin pyrophosphate (ThDP), the active form of thiamin (vitamin B1), is believed to be an essential cofactor for all living organisms1,2. Here, we report the unprecedented result that thiamin is dispensable for the growth of the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb)3. Bb lacks genes for thiamin biosynthesis and transport as well as known ThDP-dependent enzymes4, and we were unable to detect thiamin or its derivatives in Bb cells. We showed that eliminating thiamin in vitro and in vivo using BcmE, an enzyme that degrades thiamin, has no impact on Bb growth and survival during its enzootic infectious cycle. Finally, high-performance liquid chromatography analysis reveals that the level of thiamin and its derivatives in Ixodes scapularis ticks, the enzootic vector of Bb, is extremely low. These results suggest that by dispensing with use of thiamin, Borrelia, and perhaps other tick-transmitted bacterial pathogens, are uniquely adapted to survive in tick vectors before transmitting to mammalian hosts. To our knowledge, such a mechanism has not been reported previously in any living organisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
authors.forename: Yijie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The City University of New York, New York, New York 10021, USA.
authors.forename: Roy E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Nunez
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Utpal
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Pal
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry &Molecular Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, California 95817, USA.
authors.forename: Ai-Ming
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The City University of New York, New York, New York 10021, USA.
authors.forename: Weigang
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4585-1872
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Steven E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Ealick
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.|Department of Microbiology and Immunology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
authors.forename: Chunhao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D025065:Borrelia burgdorferi / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D018884:Ixodes / Q000737:chemistry; D050296:Microbial Viability; D013831:Thiamine / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D013831:Thiamine