Abstract
Borrelia burgdorferi is a symbiont of ticks of the Ixodes ricinus complex. These ticks serve as vectors to disseminate the spirochete to a variety of susceptible vertebrate hosts, which, in turn, act as reservoirs for naïve ticks to become infected, perpetuating the infectious life cycle of B. burgdorferi. The pivotal role of ticks in this life cycle and tick–spirochete interactions are the focus of this chapter. Here, we describe the challenging physiological environment that spirochetes encounter within Ixodes ticks, and the genetic factors that B. burgdorferi uses to successfully infect, persist, and be transmitted from the vector.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Tom Schwan for insights and discussions of tick biology and critical reading of the manuscript, and to Austin Athman for graphical expertise. The authors were supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIAID, NIH.
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Stewart, P.E., Rosa, P.A. (2017). Physiologic and Genetic Factors Influencing the Zoonotic Cycle of Borrelia burgdorferi. In: Adler, B. (eds) Spirochete Biology: The Post Genomic Era. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, vol 415. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/82_2017_43
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Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89637-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89638-0
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)