Borrelia burgdorferi

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Borrelia burgdorferi

Borrelia burgdorferi is species of bacteria

Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
of the spirochete

Spirochaete

Spirochaetes is a phylum of distinctive Gram-negative bacterium, which have long, helix coiled cells. Spirochetes are chemoheterotroph in nature, with lengths between 5 and 250 ?m and diameters around 0.1-0.6 ?m....
class of the genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Borrelia
Borrelia

Borrelia is a genus of bacteria of the spirochete phylum. It causes borreliosis, a zoonotic, vector transmitted primarily by ticks and some by lice, depending on the species....
. B. burgdorferi is predominant in North America, but also exists in Europe, and is the agent of Lyme disease

Lyme disease

Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia....
.

It is a zoonotic

Zoonosis

A zoonosis or zoonose is any infectious disease that is able to be transmitted from other animals, both wild and domestic, to humans or from humans to animals ....
, vector-borne disease

Vector (biology)

In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but that transmits infection by conveying pathogens from one Host to another, serving as a transmission ....
transmitted by ticks and is named after the researcher Willy Burgdorfer

Willy Burgdorfer

Willy Burgdorfer, an United States scientist born and educated in Basel, Switzerland, is an international leader in the field of entomology. He is famous for his discovery of the bacterial pathogen that causes Lyme disease, a spirochete named Borrelia burgdorferi in his honor....
who first isolated the bacterium in 1982. B. burgdorferi is one of the few pathogenic bacteria that can survive without iron, having replaced all of its iron-sulfur cluster

Iron-sulfur cluster

For biological Fe-S clusters, see iron-sulfur proteins.Iron-sulfur clusters are ensembles of iron and sulfide centres. Fe-S clusters are most often discussed in the context of the biological role for iron-sulfur proteins....
enzymes with enzymes that use manganese

Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a Oxidation state in nature , and in many minerals....
, thus avoiding the problem many pathogenic bacteria face in acquiring iron.

B.

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Encyclopedia

Borrelia burgdorferi is species of bacteria
Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
of the spirochete
Spirochaete

Spirochaetes is a phylum of distinctive Gram-negative bacterium, which have long, helix coiled cells. Spirochetes are chemoheterotroph in nature, with lengths between 5 and 250 ?m and diameters around 0.1-0.6 ?m....
class of the genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Borrelia
Borrelia

Borrelia is a genus of bacteria of the spirochete phylum. It causes borreliosis, a zoonotic, vector transmitted primarily by ticks and some by lice, depending on the species....
. B. burgdorferi is predominant in North America, but also exists in Europe, and is the agent of Lyme disease
Lyme disease

Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia....
.

It is a zoonotic
Zoonosis

A zoonosis or zoonose is any infectious disease that is able to be transmitted from other animals, both wild and domestic, to humans or from humans to animals ....
, vector-borne disease
Vector (biology)

In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but that transmits infection by conveying pathogens from one Host to another, serving as a transmission ....
transmitted by ticks and is named after the researcher Willy Burgdorfer
Willy Burgdorfer

Willy Burgdorfer, an United States scientist born and educated in Basel, Switzerland, is an international leader in the field of entomology. He is famous for his discovery of the bacterial pathogen that causes Lyme disease, a spirochete named Borrelia burgdorferi in his honor....
who first isolated the bacterium in 1982. B. burgdorferi is one of the few pathogenic bacteria that can survive without iron, having replaced all of its iron-sulfur cluster
Iron-sulfur cluster

For biological Fe-S clusters, see iron-sulfur proteins.Iron-sulfur clusters are ensembles of iron and sulfide centres. Fe-S clusters are most often discussed in the context of the biological role for iron-sulfur proteins....
enzymes with enzymes that use manganese
Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a Oxidation state in nature , and in many minerals....
, thus avoiding the problem many pathogenic bacteria face in acquiring iron.

B. burgdorferi infections have been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma

The non-Hodgkin lymphomas are a diverse group of hematological malignancy which encompass any lymphoma other than Hodgkin lymphoma.Lymphoma is a type of cancer derived from lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell....
s.

B. burgdorferi (B31 strain) was the third microbial genome
Genome

In classical genetics, the genome of a diploid organism including eukarya refers to a full set of chromosomes or genes in a gamete; thereby, a regular somatic cell contains two full sets of genomes....
ever sequenced
DNA sequencing

The term DNA sequencing refers to methods for determining the order of the nucleotide bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, in a molecule of DNA....
, following the sequencing of both H.influenzae and M.genitalium in 1995, and contains 910,725 base pair
Base pair

In molecular biology, two nucleotides on opposite complementarity DNA or RNA strands that are connected via hydrogen bonds are called a base pair ....
s and 853 gene
Gene

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain their cell and pass genetic trait to offspring....
s. The sequencing method used was whole genome shotgun. The sequencing project, completed and published in Nature in 1997, was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research
The Institute for Genomic Research

The Institute for Genomic Research was a non-profit genomics research institute founded in 1992 by Craig Venter in Rockville, Maryland, United States....
.

See also

Allen Steere
Allen Steere

Allen C. Steere is a professor of rheumatology at Harvard University and previously at Yale University. Steere is credited with discovering and naming Lyme disease, and he published almost 200 scholarly articles on Lyme disease between 1977 and 2007....
Jorge Benach
Jorge Benach

Jorge Benach is a medical researcher at the State University of New York at State University of New York at Stony Brook in New York state. Benach is the chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology....

External links