ArticleMicrobial ecology2020
Getting under the birds' skin: tissue tropism of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. in naturally and experimentally infected avian hosts.
Article in Microbial ecology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global seroprevalence and sociodemographic characteristics ofBMJ global health · 2022Pooled it
- Vectors Are Not Just Culture Vessels.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2026Article
- Turning urban wildlife mortality into a surveillance tool: Detection of vector-borne pathogens in carcasses of hedgehogs, squirrels, and blackbirds.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Bird-Borrelia Interactions: A Historical Review and Their Significance for Human Disease Ecology.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- A Bayesian modelling framework for estimating tick-borne pathogen transmission dynamics at the host-tick interface.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Single and Co-Infections by Tick-Borne Pathogens in Synanthropic European Hedgehogs (Veterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Parasite spillover rather than niche expansion explains infection of host brain by diplostomid eye flukes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Adaptive immunity inApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Presence of Borrelia Spirochetes in White Stork (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Hitchhiker's Guide toJournal of bacteriology · 2024Review
- Tick-borne zoonotic flaviviruses andOne health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2024Review
- Xenodiagnosis in the wild: A methodology to investigate infectiousness for tick-borne bacteria in a songbird reservoir.Current research in parasitology & vector-borne diseases · 2024Article
- Survey of Tick-Borne Zoonotic Agents inTransboundary and emerging diseases · 2023Article
- Utilizing Two Borrelia bavariensis Isolates Naturally Lacking the PFam54 Gene Array To Elucidate the Roles of PFam54-Encoded Proteins.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- The evolving story of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato transmission in Europe.Parasitology research · 2022Review
- Local Community Composition Drives AvianVeterinary sciences · 2022Article
- Transmission patterns of tick-borne pathogens among birds and rodents in a forested park in southeastern Canada.PloS one · 2022Article
- Effects of stress exposure in captivity on physiology and infection in avian hosts: no evidence of increased Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. infectivity to vector ticks.Microbial ecology · 2022Article
- Host tropism determination by convergent evolution of immunological evasion in the Lyme disease system.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Hedgehogs, Squirrels, and Blackbirds as Sentinel Hosts for Active Surveillance ofMicroorganisms · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Wild birds are frequently exposed to the zoonotic tick-borne bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.), and some bird species act as reservoirs for some Borrelia genospecies. Studying the tropism of Borrelia in the host, how it is sequestered in different organs, and whether it is maintained in circulation and/or in the host's skin is important to understand pathogenicity, infectivity to vector ticks and reservoir competency.We evaluated tissue dissemination of Borrelia in blackbirds (Turdus merula) and great tits (Parus major), naturally and experimentally infected with Borrelia genospecies from enzootic foci. We collected both minimally invasive biological samples (feathers, skin biopsies and blood) and skin, joint, brain and visceral tissues from necropsied birds. Infectiousness of the host was evaluated through xenodiagnoses and infection rates in fed and moulted ticks. Skin biopsies were the most reliable method for assessing avian hosts' Borrelia infectiousness, which was supported by the agreement of infection status results obtained from the analysis of chin and lore skin samples from necropsied birds and of their xenodiagnostic ticks, including a significant correlation between the estimated concentration of Borrelia genome copies in the skin and the Borrelia infection rate in the xenodiagnostic ticks. This confirms a dermatropism of Borrelia garinii, B. valaisiana and B. turdi in its avian hosts. However, time elapsed from exposure to Borrelia and interaction between host species and Borrelia genospecies may affect the reliability of skin biopsies. The blood was not useful to assess infectiousness of birds, even during the period of expected maximum spirochetaemia. From the tissues sampled (foot joint, liver, spleen, heart, kidney, gut and brain), Borrelia was detected only in the gut, which could be related with infection mode, genospecies competition, genospecies-specific seasonality and/or excretion processes.
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