ArticlePLoS pathogens2023
Variation among strains of Borrelia burgdorferi in host tissue abundance and lifetime transmission determine the population strain structure in nature.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Curiouser and curiouser: understanding the intersection of inter- and intra-specific diversity during theInfection and immunity · 2026Review
- Letter regarding unravelling the genomic landscape of CanadianMicrobial genomics · 2026Article
- Genetic landscape of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto in Canada: a study of genetic diversity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A NovelPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Adaptive immunity inApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Hitchhiker's Guide toJournal of bacteriology · 2024Review
- Whole-genome sequencing of Western CanadianMicrobial genomics · 2024Article
- Comparative reservoir competence ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- 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
- Variation among strains of Borrelia burgdorferi in host tissue abundance and lifetime transmission determine the population strain structure in nature.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pathogen life history theory assumes a positive relationship between pathogen load in host tissues and pathogen transmission. Empirical evidence for this relationship is surprisingly rare due to the difficulty of measuring transmission for many pathogens. The comparative method, where a common host is experimentally infected with a set of pathogen strains, is a powerful approach for investigating the relationships between pathogen load and transmission. The validity of such experimental estimates of strain-specific transmission is greatly enhanced if they can predict the pathogen population strain structure in nature. Borrelia burgdorferi is a multi-strain, tick-borne spirochete that causes Lyme disease in North America. This study used 11 field-collected strains of B. burgdorferi, a rodent host (Mus musculus, C3H/HeJ) and its tick vector (Ixodes scapularis) to determine the relationship between pathogen load in host tissues and lifetime host-to-tick transmission (HTT). Mice were experimentally infected via tick bite with 1 of 11 strains. Lifetime HTT was measured by infesting mice with I. scapularis larval ticks on 3 separate occasions. The prevalence and abundance of the strains in the mouse tissues and the ticks were determined by qPCR. We used published databases to obtain estimates of the frequencies of these strains in wild I. scapularis tick populations. Spirochete loads in ticks and lifetime HTT varied significantly among the 11 strains of B. burgdorferi. Strains with higher spirochete loads in the host tissues were more likely to infect feeding larval ticks, which molted into nymphal ticks that had a higher probability of B. burgdorferi infection (i.e., higher HTT). Our laboratory-based estimates of lifetime HTT were predictive of the frequencies of these strains in wild I. scapularis populations. For B. burgdorferi, the strains that establish high abundance in host tissues and that have high lifetime transmission are the strains that are most common in nature.
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