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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2001, p. 2254-2260, Vol. 39, No. 6
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.6.2254-2260.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Isolation and Characterization of Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato Strains in an Area of Italy Where Lyme Borreliosis Is Endemic

Lorenzo Ciceroni,¹ Simonetta Ciarrochi,¹ Alessandra Ciervo,¹ Valeria Mondarini,² Francesco Guzzo,² Giuseppe Caruso,³ Rossella Murgia,⁴ and Marina Cinco^4,*

Department of Bacteriology and Medical Mycology, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 00161 Rome,¹ Division of Infectious Diseases³ and Laboratorio di analisi Chimico-Cliniche,² "San Martino" Hospital, Belluno, and Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Laboratorio delle Spirochete, Università di Trieste, Trieste,⁴ Italy

Received 23 October 2000/Returned for modification 21 January 2001/Accepted 8 April 2001

Between 1993 and 1998, we isolated Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato from 55 of the 119 patients with clinically diagnosed Lyme borreliosis who were admitted to "San Martino" Hospital in Belluno, Veneto, an Adriatic region in northeastern Italy where Lyme borreliosis is endemic. Upon hospitalization, all patients presented erythema migrans. Isolates were typed using ribosomal DNA PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the rrfA-rrlB intergenic spacer. Of the 41 isolates typed, 37 belonged to Borrelia afzelii, 2 to Borrelia garinii, and 2 to B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, performed on 21 strains (13 new isolates and 8 controls), revealed different RFLP patterns within the B. garinii and B. afzelii strains; among the five B. garinii strains and the 12 B. afzelii strains, three or two different RFLP patterns were identified, according to the restriction enzyme used. The protein patterns of the new isolates confirmed their genotypic classification and revealed the level of expression of some immunodominant proteins like OspA and other characteristic Osps. These findings constitute the first report of such a high recovery rate of B. burgdorferi from patients in a very restricted area in Italy; they also indicate the predominance of the genospecies B. afzelii in the study area and the heterogeneity of the circulating strains.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Universita' di Trieste, 34127 Trieste, Italy. Phone: 39 040 6767178. Fax: 39 040 351668. E-mail: cinco{at}dsbmail.units.it.

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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2001, p. 2254-2260, Vol. 39, No. 6
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.6.2254-2260.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

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