Clinical presentation of Ixodes tick-borne borreliosis caused by Borrelia miyamotoi in the context of an immune response to the pathogen

Abstract

Ixodes tick-borne borreliosis caused by Borrelia miyamotoi (ITBB-BM) is a previously unknown infectious disease discovered in Russia. Aim. The present study continues the investigation of the clinical features of ITBB-BM in the context of an immune system-pathogen interaction. Subjects and methods. The study enrolled 117 patients with ITBB-BM and a comparison group of 71 patients with Lyme disease (LD) that is ITBB with erythema migrans. All the patients were treated at the New Hospital, Yekateringburg. More than 100 clinical, epidemiological and laboratory parameters were obtained from each patient’s medical history and included in the general database. A subset of patients hospitalized in 2015 and 2016 underwent additional laboratory examinations. Namely, the levels of B. miyamotoi-specific IgM and IgG antibodies were measured by the protein microarray containing GlpQ protein and four variable major proteins (VMPs): Vlp15/16, Vlp18, Vsp1, and Vlp5. The blood concentration of Borrelia was estimated by quantitative real-time PCR. Results. In contrast to LD, first of all (p

Keywords

• ixodes tick-borne borreliosis
• borrelia miyamotoi
• glpq
• variable major surface proteins
• protein microarray
• antibodies
• glpq