Variation among strains of Borrelia burgdorferi in host tissue abundance and lifetime transmission determine the population strain structure in nature.

ABSTRACT: Pathogen life history theory assumes a positive relationship between pathogen load in host tissues and pathogen transmission. Empirical evidence for this relationship is surprisingly rare due to the difficulty of measuring transmission for many pathogens. The comparative method, where a common host is experimentally infected with a set of pathogen strains, is a powerful approach for investigating the relationships between pathogen load and transmission. The validity of such experimental estimates of strain-specific transmission is greatly enhanced if they can predict the pathogen population strain structure in nature. Borrelia burgdorferi is a multi-strain, tick-borne spirochete that causes Lyme disease in North America. This study used 11 field-collected strains of B. burgdorferi, a roden

SUBMITTER: Zinck CB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10473547 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature