Borrelia garinii isolate I174
The ospC gene was amplified using a nested PCR method consisting of two consecutive amplification steps that was described by Bunikis et al. (2003). We modified the oligonucleotides for the second PCR reaction to include 454 Life Science’s A or B sequencing adapter, the key, and the template-specific primers. The reaction was performed in an automatic thermocycler (Eppendorf, USA). We checked the success of the PCR reactions by visualizing the amplicons on a 1% agarose gel stained with Midori Green (Labgene, Switzerland). The PCR products were purified using a DNA purification kit (Wizard® SV Gel and PCR Clean-Up System, Promega, Switzerland).