ArticlePLoS genetics2008
The genome of Borrelia recurrentis, the agent of deadly louse-borne relapsing fever, is a degraded subset of tick-borne Borrelia duttonii.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 96 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
96 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 174 citations in OpenAlex.
- Data release: targeted systematic literature search for tick and tick-borne pathogen distributions in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 1901 to 2020.Parasites & vectors · 2024Pooled it
- Tick borne relapsing fever - a systematic review and analysis of the literature.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Pooled it
- Louse-borne relapsing fever-A systematic review and analysis of the literature: Part 1-Epidemiology and diagnostic aspects.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Relapsing fever revisited: New insights into neglected borrelial infections.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Review
- Complement inhibition by a unique cluster of immunomodulatory outer surface proteins of Borrelia recurrentis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Genomic and structural analysis of major antigenic proteins' variability in the human relapsing fever spirocheteCurrent research in microbial sciences · 2026Article
- Characterization of the family-levelmBio · 2025Article
- AncientScience (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Whole-genome sequences of sixMicrobiology resource announcements · 2025Article
- Development and validation of systems for genetic manipulation of the Old World tick-borne relapsing fever spirochete, Borrelia duttonii.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparative genomics analysis of three conserved plasmid families in the Western Hemisphere soft tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae provides insight into variation in genome structure and antigenic variation systems.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- A simple non-invasive method to collect soft tick saliva reveals differences inFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- Large-Scale Sequencing ofGenes · 2022Review
- A Comparative Study of Body Lice and Bed Bugs Reveals Factors Potentially Involved in Differential Vector Competence for the Relapsing Fever Spirochete Borrelia recurrentis.Infection and immunity · 2022Article
- Review
- Simultaneous Detection and Differentiation of Clinically Relevant Relapsing FeverJournal of clinical microbiology · 2021Article
- The First Immunocompetent Mouse Model of Strictly Human Pathogen, Borrelia recurrentis.Infection and immunity · 2021Article
- The evolution of hard tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae is correlated with vector species rather than geographical distance.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Evolutionary Genetics ofCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2021Review
36 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In an effort to understand how a tick-borne pathogen adapts to the body louse, we sequenced and compared the genomes of the recurrent fever agents Borrelia recurrentis and B. duttonii. The 1,242,163-1,574,910-bp fragmented genomes of B. recurrentis and B. duttonii contain a unique 23-kb linear plasmid. This linear plasmid exhibits a large polyT track within the promoter region of an intact variable large protein gene and a telomere resolvase that is unique to Borrelia. The genome content is characterized by several repeat families, including antigenic lipoproteins. B. recurrentis exhibited a 20.4% genome size reduction and appeared to be a strain of B. duttonii, with a decaying genome, possibly due to the accumulation of genomic errors induced by the loss of recA and mutS. Accompanying this were increases in the number of impaired genes and a reduction in coding capacity, including surface-exposed lipoproteins and putative virulence factors. Analysis of the reconstructed ancestral sequence compared to B. duttonii and B. recurrentis was consistent with the accelerated evolution observed in B. recurrentis. Vector specialization of louse-borne pathogens responsible for major epidemics was associated with rapid genome reduction. The correlation between gene loss and increased virulence of B. recurrentis parallels that of Rickettsia prowazekii, with both species being genomic subsets of less-virulent strains.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.