Adhesion of Borrelia garinii to neuronal cells is mediated by the interaction of OspA with proteoglycans.

To study pathogenic mechanisms of Lyme meningoradiculitis, dorsal root ganglia (DRG) cells and two neuronal cell lines (B50, SH-SY5Y) were incubated with Borrelia garinii, the Borrelia species most frequently isolated from CSF of Lyme neuroborreliosis patients in Europe. We demonstrated that (I) OspA-positive B. garinii adhere to neuronal cells, (II) Borrelia adhesion can be blocked by a monoclonal antibody against OspA, (III) preincubation with proteoglycans interferes with the adhesion process and (IV) rOspA directly binds to the proteoglycans.

Significant improvement of the recombinant Borrelia-specific immunoglobulin G immunoblot test by addition of VlsE and a DbpA homologue derived from Borrelia garinii for diagnosis of early neuroborreliosis.

We investigated whether the recombinant Borrelia Western blot test previously described (B. Wilske, C. Habermann, V.

Dynamics of dissemination and outer surface protein expression of different European Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato strains in artificially infected Ixodes ricinus nymphs.

Unfed Ixodes ricinus nymphs were infected with eight different strains and clones of Borrelia afzelii and B. garinii by capillary feeding. Except one B.