USE OF THE C3H HE LYME-DISEASE MOUSE MODEL FOR THE RECOVERY OF A SPANISH ISOLATE OF BORRELIA-GARINII FROM ERYTHEMA MIGRANS LESIONS/

A skin biopsy from a patient with erythema migrans was inoculated into C3H/He mice and into culture medium. A Borrelia garinii strain named Rio1 was isolated from both a direct BSK medium culture and a mouse ea r-punch biopsy culture. Inoculating human tissue into mice produced a disease resulting in severe inflammation of the left tibio-tarsal join t, development of perivascular infiltrates as seen in ear-punch biopsi es and the spread of spirochaetes along the skin, far from the inocula tion site. The isolation of this strain confirms the circulation of th is Borrelia species in Spain as a human pathogen, as well as its arthr ogenicity in an animal model. The method used to recover strain Rio1 f rom human tissue is described as rapid and sensitive compared to direc t inoculation of tissue into BSK medium.