Borrelia Infected Neoplastic Glial Cells in Five Patients With Glioblastoma Multiformae

Abstract

Glioblastoma multiformae (GBM) is a primary malignancy of brain astrocytes. Transcranial stereotactic biopsy specimens from five deceased and anonymous patients with GBM were retrieved from archival storage two years after the death of the patients. All patients were residents of the Long Island, New York metropolitan region where borrelia burgdorferi and borrelia miyamotoi infections are hyperendemic. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using two DNA probes specific for genes of burgdorferi borrelia and an additional FISH method study with two DNA probes specific for miyamotoi borrelia each and individually produced high signal borrelia DNA hybridizations inside malignant cells in brain biopsies from all five decedents. Bright signal bacterial DNA hybridizations inside live borrelia spirochetes were found at all levels in serial sections of tumor biopsy fragments in low magnification imaging and outright invasion of the nuclei of individual tumor cells in high resolution imaging. Herein is the first report of a cluster of GBM patients with universal borrelia microbe invasion of neoplastic glial cells.