Borrelia lusitaniae
| Borrelia lusitaniae | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Bacteria |
| Phylum: | Spirochaetes |
| Class: | Spirochaetes |
| Order: | Spirochaetales |
| Family: | Spirochaetaceae |
| Genus: | Borrelia |
| Species: | B. lusitaniae |
| Binomial name | |
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Borrelia lusitaniae Le Fleche et al., 1997 |
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Borrelia lusitaniae is a bacterium of the spirochete class of the genus Borrelia, which has a diderm (double-membrane) envelope. It is a part of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato genospecies and is a Gram-negative bacterium. B. lusitaniae is tick-borne; he type strain is PotiB2. It can be pathogenic, being involved in cases of Lyme borreliosis. A species of tick, Ixodes ricinus, is the host of B. lusitaniae. It is thought to have originated from Portugal and has since spread to parts of Europe and North Africa. Lizards of the family Lacertidae are now believed to be important reservoir hosts of this bacterium.
While B. lusitaniae is distributed throughout countries in Europe and North Africa, it is the sole species of the Lyme borreliosis group in southern Portugal. Lizards of the family Lacertidae are believed to be important reservoir hosts of B. lusitaniae. They were first isolated in Portugal in 1993. These lizards that include the sand lizard and common wall lizard are known to be highly structured phylogeographically. Migration is very limited between the lizard populations from different localities and it has shed light into the evolution and epidemiology of B. lusitaniae. The pronounced population structure of B. lusitaniae over a short geographic distance (southern Portugal) by housekeeping genes indicates that the migration rates of B. lusitaniae are rather low, because the distribution of Mediterranean lizard populations is highly parapatric.
Different populations of B. lusitaniae are known. Seven strains of B. lusitaniae sp. nov. have been isolated from Ixodes ricinus ticks in Portugal, the Czech Republic, Moldavia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Local populations have diverged through vicariance, because climate change after the last ice age generated ecological barriers between Mafra and Grândola. In more northern or eastern countries, B. lusitaniae has been detected at only a few sites, at which it infects ticks less frequently than it does on the Mediterranean coast, although in Morocco and Tunisia, 96.6-100% of the Borrelia species present were B. lusitaniae.
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