ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE INVOLVEMENT OF BORRELIA-BURGDORFERI SENSU LATE IN ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

The involvement of spirochaetes, such as the aetiologic agent of Lyme borreliosis, Barrelia burgdorferi sensu late, in Alzheimer's disease ( AD), a common neuropathology, has been proposed by several groups in t he past. in our laboratory, brains from 10 AD patients were analysed f or the presence of B. burgdorferi sensu late by both standard and nest ed PCR techniques based on various target regions, such as the hbb gen e (encoding the histone-like protein HBb), the fla gene (flagellin), t he rrl-rrf ribosomal intergenic spacer region and the rrs gene (encodi ng 16S rRNA). In addition, ELISA and Western blot tests for the detect ion of antibodies against spirochaetal antigens were performed on 27 s era from clinical AD patients. Using these methods, we did not obtain any evidence of the involvement of B. burgdorferi in Alzheimer's disea se.