COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF THE ENZYME-ACTIVITIES OF BORRELIA-BURGDORFERI AND OTHER NONINTESTINAL AND INTESTINAL SPIROCHETES

Comparative analysis of the enzymatic profiles of 58 spirochaetal isol ates clearly differentiated borrelias from leptospires, serpulinas and a treponeme. Strains of both Borrelia burgdorferi and Borrelia hermsi i characteristically produced significant amounts of leucine arylamida se. This enzyme activity was not unique to borrelias but was also dete cted amongst pathogenic and non-pathogenic leptospira serovars. This f act, however, did not hamper a correct differentiation of borrelias fr om these spirochaetes, because leptospires possessed unique enzyme pro files. The API ZYM system could not differentiate the human strains of B. burgdorferi from those isolated from ticks, or from B. hermsii. Tr eponema phagedenis could be differentiated from all the other spirocha etes by the production of alpha-fucosidase. Our results confirm and ex tend previous studies indicating that human and animal intestinal spir ochaetes have many common enzyme activities. All strains produced reac tions of maximum intensity when tested for the presence of beta-galact osidase activity. However the avian strains lacked esterase (C4) which was present in human and swine intestinal spirochaetes. All strains o f Serpulina hyodysenteriae, and Serpulina innocens as well as the huma n intestinal spirochaete strain HRM-14 showed alpha and beta glucosida se activity. Both enzyme activities were absent or insignificant in mo st other intestinal spirochaetes examined: 25 different human strains, non-pathogenic swine strain M1 and the avian strain 4742. However, sw ine strain LL3 and avian strain 1380 showed some beta-glucosidase acti vity.