Revista de Bacteriología y Parasitología

Abstracto

Asymptomatic Infection of Borrelia burgdorferi in Xinjiang, China

Yuhui Tan, Qin Hao, Kanglin Wan, Yong Liu, He Sun, Luhai Yu, Yuhan Zhang, Hui Dang, Mingyuan Wang, Yi Zhu, Hetaer Mo, Siya A, Jiang Long, Hongyan Li, Yinuer Ma and Qin Li

The natural history of asymptomatic infection of Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi) and genotype infected population of Xinjiang has been unclear. We report here, on the basis of molecular epidemiological studies on B. burgdorferi in population of Tacheng, the endemic area in Xinjiang China, the outcome of asymptomatic infection of B. burgdorferi and PCR result to B. burgdorferi in participants of a follow-up visit in 2006, based on the sero-epidemiological investigation of B. burgdorferi infection in 2002, and detected the serum anti-B. burgdorferi antibody levels in participants using western blot assay. In addition, urine samples were collected from participants at the time of follow-up and tested by nested PCR for the presence of B. burgdoferi DNA. Eight positive products were sequenced by the Borders Group Inc Company. We show that asymptomatic infection with B. burgdorferi occurred more frequently than clinical cases of Lyme disease. Sequencing analysis of the 5s-23SrRNA spacer region of Eight PCR-positive samples revealed that 7 were of B. garinii and 1 of B. afzelii, these genospecies are identical with those infecting local vectors.