A Five-year Study of the Presence of Borrelia and Antibodies to Borrelia in Small Rodents.

Karel Vostal, Alena Zakovska, Marcela Neasová

Department of Comparative Physiology and General Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Masaryk University, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic

The purpose of the study was to find the degree of antibody response on infection of Lyme disease caused by the pathogenic spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. and the eventual presence of this bacteria in tissues of affected individuals (small rodents).

A total of 450 wild-living rodents was trapped in locality Studenka in the North Moravia from the years of 1997-99 (276) to 2001-02 (174). All of these individuals were tested for the presence of antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato using indirect ELISA method. Serology was performed by testing for IgG antibodies against antigen of B. afzelii as one of the most presented genospecies of B.b. s.l. in wild small mammals in the Czech Republic. The results were sorted by period of trapping and species of examined rodents.

1. In the years of 1997-99 the positivity of trapped rodents was 36,4 %, the most positive species was Apodemus flavicollis (43,6 %).

2. In the years of 2001-02 the positivity of individuals was 43,8 %, the most positive species was Apodemus sylvaticus (58,8 %).

For the presence of living borreliae in rodents a total of 219 rodents was also trapped in locality Studenka in the year of 1999. These individuals were examined for the presence of Libiny spirochaetes in rodent tissues by dark.field microscopy. Of all 39 samples were find to be positive (17,8 %) for the presence of spirochetes and 15 of them were successfully isolated. All isolated strains were identified as B. afzelii using PCR-RFLP method. The results were confirmed by usány SDS-PAGGE method. These data shows that rodents play the important role in the circulation of borreliae in nature.

This work was partially supported of CEZ: J 07/98: 143100008

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