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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 1999, p. 565-569, Vol. 37, No. 3
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Genetic Diversity of Borrelia burgdorferi in Lyme Disease Patients as Determined by Culture versus Direct PCR with Clinical Specimens

Dionysios Liveris,1 Shobha Varde,1 Radha Iyer,1 Seth Koenig,1 Susan Bittker,2 Denise Cooper,2 Donna McKenna,2 John Nowakowski,2 Robert B. Nadelman,2 Gary P. Wormser,2 and Ira Schwartz1,*

Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology1 and Medicine,2 New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York 10595

Received 12 August 1998/Returned for modification 13 October 1998/Accepted 17 November 1998

Two hundred seventeen isolates of Borrelia burgdorferi originally cultured from skin biopsy samples or blood of early Lyme disease patients were genetically characterized by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing of the 16S-23S ribosomal DNA intergenic spacer. Three major RFLP types were observed. Of the cultured isolates, 63 of 217 (29.0%) were type 1, 85 of 217 (39.2%) were type 2, and 58 of 217 (26.7%) were type 3; mixtures of two RFLP types were obtained in 6.0% (13 of 217) of the cultures. Comparison of typing of B. burgdorferi performed directly on 51 patient skin specimens with typing of cultures originally isolated from the same tissue revealed that a much larger proportion of direct tissue samples had mixtures of RFLP types (43.1% by direct typing versus 5.9% by culture [P < 0.001). In addition, identical RFLP types were observed in only 35.5% (11 of 31) of the paired samples. RFLP type 3 organisms were recovered from blood at a significantly lower rate than were either type 1 or type 2 strains. These studies demonstrate that the genetic diversity of B. burgdorferi patient isolates as determined by cultivation differs from that assessed by PCR performed directly on patient tissue.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595. Phone: (914) 594-4658. Fax: (914) 594-4058. E-mail: schwartz{at}nymc.edu.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 1999, p. 565-569, Vol. 37, No. 3
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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