Journal Article

The genus Borrelia reloaded

Margos, Gabriele, Wibberg, Daniel, Fingerle, Volker, Loh, Siew-May, Dangel, Alexandra, Gofton, Alex, Oskam, Charlotte, Marosevic, Durdica

2018

Overview

The genus Borrelia, originally described by Swellengrebel in 1907, contains tick- or louse-transmitted spirochetes belonging to the relapsing fever (RF) group of spirochetes, the Lyme borreliosis (LB) group of spirochetes and spirochetes that form intermittent clades. In 2014 it was proposed that the genus Borrelia should be separated into two genera; Borrelia Swellengrebel 1907 emend. Adeolu and Gupta 2014 containing RF spirochetes and Borreliella Adeolu and Gupta 2014 containing LB group of spirochetes. In this study we conducted an analysis based on a method that is suitable for bacterial genus demarcation, the percentage of conserved proteins (POCP). We included RF group species, LB group species and two species belonging to intermittent clades, Borrelia turcica Güner et al. 2004 and Candidatus Borrelia tachyglossi Loh et al. 2017. These analyses convincingly showed that all groups of spirochetes belong into one genus and we propose to emend, and re-unite all groups in, the genus Borrelia.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Animals / Arachnids / Arthropods / Biology and Life Sciences / Borrelia / Borrelia - classification / Borrelia - genetics / Borrelia Infections - microbiology / Borreliosis / Distribution / DNA, Bacterial - analysis / Fever / Food safety / Genetic aspects / Genomics / Host Microbial Interactions - genetics / Host Specificity - genetics / Humans / Identification and classification / Life sciences / Lyme disease / Lyme Disease - microbiology / Medicine and Health Sciences / Methods / Patient safety / Phylogenetics / Phylogeny / Prokaryotes / Proteins / Relapsing fever / Relapsing Fever - microbiology / Sequence Analysis, DNA / Species / Spirochetes / Taxonomy (Biology)