Competition between strains of Borrelia afzelii in the host tissues and consequences for transmission to ticks

• DOI: 10.1038/s41396-021-00939-5
• Publication Date: 2021-03-03T18:18:03Z
• Authors: Dolores Genné; Marika Rossel; Anouk Sarr; Florian Battilotti; Olivier Rais; Ryan O M Rego; Maarten J Voordouw
• Keywords: Borrelia afzelii

Abstract Pathogen species often consist of genetically distinct strains, which can establish mixed infections or coinfections in the host. In coinfections, interactions between pathogen strains have important consequences for their transmission success. We used tick-borne bacterium Borrelia afzelii, is most common cause Lyme disease Europe, as a model multi-strain to investigate relationship coinfection, competition and strain-specific Mus musculus mice were infected with one two B. strain success was measured by feeding ticks on mice, distribution each six different mouse organs using qPCR. Coinfection reduced tissue infection prevalence both changed bacterial abundance some tissues. also afzelii from hosts ticks. The ability host tissues strongly correlated tick vector. Our study demonstrates that coinfection inside major