Phylogeography of Borrelia burgdorferi in the eastern United States reflects multiple independent Lyme disease emergence events.

ABSTRACT: Since its first description in coastal Connecticut in 1976, both the incidence of Lyme disease and the geographic extent of endemic areas in the US have increased dramatically. The rapid expansion of Lyme disease into its current distribution in the eastern half of the US has been due to the range expansion of the tick vector, Ixodes scapularis, upon which the causative agent, Borrelia burgdorferi is dependent for transmission to humans. In this study, we examined the phylogeographic population structure of B. burgdorferi throughout the range of I. scapularis-borne Lyme disease using multilocus sequence typing based on bacterial housekeeping genes. We show that B. burgdorferi populations from the Northeast and Midwest are genetically distinct, but phylogenetically related. Our findings pro

SUBMITTER: Hoen AG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2727481 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature