Day 22: Staring down Lyme’s disease

Three-dimensional cryo-electron tomogram of two different Borrelia species. Credit: Heidelberg University Hospital

Researchers in Germany and Russia have been spying on the creepy little bacteria that cause Lyme’s Disease, and think they may be closing in on an Achilles Heel. And that could translate into good news someday for the roughly 30,000 people who contract the tick-born disease in the United States each year (see map) — and the 80,000 annual cases in Germany.

The Lymes disease bacterium, called Borrelia burgdorferi, has evolved impressively crafty strategies for breaching the human body’s defenses.  The spiral-shaped, actively motile bacteria have flexible, pliable bodies propelled by a whiplike structure called a flagella. Researchers have long suspected that the motility of the pathogen is the key to its wildly successful infectiousness.

Now they have evidence to back it up. 

Mikhail Kudryashev, at Krasnoyarsk State University in Russia, and his international colleagues have developed a new technique to “shock freeze” the sneaky little invaders so their original conditions are retained. The new method gets around chemical preparation of past studies that tended to alter the bacterial structures and properties. Combined with high resolution microscopy, the new technique is turning researchers into very efficient spies.

Take that, Borrelia burgdorferi!

But seriously: “The new technology is a quantum leap for research, comparable with the step from simple x-ray images to three-dimensional computer tomography in clinical diagnostics,” said Friedrich Frischknecht, a parasitologist at Heidelberg University Hospital.

The researchers have now compared the three species that cause Lymes disease in Europe. Joint inflammation is the most common symptom in North America, but in Europe, victims also suffer effects in the skin and nervous system. Key differences between the species that cause the various symptoms, say Kudryashev and his colleagues, lie in the tail-like flagella. Structures were also identified for the first time that might play an important role in the reproduction of the bacteria. In future work, the researchers hope to gain new insights into the various clinical symptoms of the disease.

And knowledge is power. The journal where the research was published, Molecular Microbiology, is a hotbed of studies about the tiny details of structure and function in beasties both sinister and benign. From these types of papers emerge the tools to fight back against our microscopic foes, although any cure stemming from the Lymes disease research is likely a long way off. For now, we must still prevent it — by avoiding tick bites, mostly. Lymes disease is highly treatable if you catch it in time. So if you see the tell-tale “bullseye rash,” with or without the clearing in the middle, get thee to a doctor — and take every last dose of the antibiotic he or she prescribes.