Emerging Tick-Borne Diseases.

Increases in tick-borne disease prevalence and transmission are important public health issues. Efforts to control these emerging diseases are frustrated by the struggle to control tick populations and to detect and treat infections caused by the pathogens that they transmit. This review covers tick-borne infectious diseases of nonrickettsial bacterial, parasitic, and viral origins.

Real-time PCR and pyrosequencing for differentiation of medically relevant Bartonella species.

Multiple Bartonella species cause disease in humans. Although fast and accurate species differentiation could inform effective treatment interventions, species-level diagnosis of Bartonella infections is not typical. Here we describe a real-time PCR and pyrosequencing based algorithm for rapid differentiation of at least 11 medically relevant Bartonella spp.

Treponema denticola superoxide reductase: in vivo role, in vitro reactivities, and a novel [Fe(Cys)(4)] site.

In vitro and in vivo results are presented demonstrating that superoxide reductase (SOR) from the air-sensitive oral spirochete, Treponema denticola (Td), is a principal enzymatic scavenger of superoxide in this organism. This SOR contains the characteristic non-heme [Fe(His)(4)Cys] active sites. No other metal-binding domain has been annotated for Td SOR.

Cryo-electron tomography elucidates the molecular architecture of Treponema pallidum, the syphilis spirochete.

Cryo-electron tomography (CET) was used to examine the native cellular organization of Treponema pallidum, the syphilis spirochete. T. pallidum cells appeared to form flat waves, did not contain an outer coat and, except for bulges over the basal bodies and widening in the vicinity of flagellar filaments, displayed a uniform periplasmic space.

The flat-ribbon configuration of the periplasmic flagella of Borrelia burgdorferi and its relationship to motility and morphology.

Electron cryotomography was used to analyze the structure of the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. This methodology offers a new means for studying the native architecture of bacteria by eliminating the chemical fixing, dehydration, and staining steps of conventional electron microscopy. Using electron cryotomography, we noted that membrane blebs formed at the ends of the cells.