B. Jaulhac et al., Direct molecular typing of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu late species in synovial samples from patients with Lyme arthritis, J CLIN MICR, 38(5), 2000, pp. 1895-1900
Since Lyme arthritis was first described in the United States, it has now b
een reported in many countries of Europe. However, very few strains of the
causative bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, have been isolated from synovial
samples. For this reason, different molecular direct typing methods were d
eveloped recently to assess which species could be involved in Lyme arthrit
is in Europe. We developed a simple oligonucleotide typing method with PCR
fragments from the flagellin gene of B. burgdorferi sensu late, which is ab
le to differentiate seven different Borrelia species. Among 10 consecutive
PCR-positive patients with Lyme arthritis from the northeastern France, two
species were identified in synovial samples: B. burgdorferi sensu stricto
in 9 cases and B. garinii in 1 case. Conversely, all B. burgdorferi sensu l
ate species detected in 10 consecutive PCR-positive biopsies from a second
set of patients with erythema migrans from the same geographical area were
identified as either B. afzelii or B. garinii (P < 0.001). These results in
dicate that B. burgdorferi sensu stricto is the principal but not the only
Borrelia species involved in Lyme arthritis in northeastern France.