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Genetic Diversity and the Absence of Regional Differences of Borrelia garinii as Demonstrated by ospA and ospB Gene Sequence Analysis
Author(s) -
Yabuki Mihe,
Nakao Minoru,
Fukunaga Masahito
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
microbiology and immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1348-0421
pISSN - 0385-5600
DOI - 10.1111/j.1348-0421.1999.tb03366.x
Subject(s) - biology , borrelia garinii , borrelia burgdorferi , genetics , restriction fragment length polymorphism , ixodes persulcatus , sequence analysis , phylogenetic tree , gene , spirochaetaceae , borrelia , sensu , polymerase chain reaction , microbiology and biotechnology , virology , tick , zoology , antibody , genus
Unfed adult Ixodes persulcatus ticks were collected from four locations of Nagano and Hokkaido in Japan. Infected Borrelia garinii were investigated by PCR‐RFLP of the ospA and ospB gene sequences. The primer set amplified an approximately 1.6‐kb DNA fragment (0.7‐kb in some strains), and Bsr I, Bst YI, or Nla III digestion of the product resulted in six distinctively different PCR‐RFLP groups and two independent borrelial strains. The representatives in each PCR‐RFLP group and individuals from the borrelial strains were sequenced, and their deduced amino acid sequences were aligned. A neighbor‐joining phylogenetic analysis showed that the B. garinii OspA or OspB sequences were each divided into three major clusters including isolates from both the Nagano and Hokkaido locations. There was no local difference in OspA/B sequences between Nagano and Hokkaido. The osp gene of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is highly heterogeneous, and this was also confirmed by our sequence analysis. Some strains of the different PCR‐RFLP groups had closely related OspA sequences, while the OspB sequences of these strains were quite different. These findings suggested intraspecies gene exchange and recombination events between the two genes in B. garinii .