Cloning and sequencing of a species-specific nucleotide fragment of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, which is repeated in several plasmids of the species.

Abstract

Among the etiological agents of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto strains carry a 16 kb plasmid, which did not hybridize to plasmids of B. garinii and B. afzelii strains. A 1271 bp DNA fragment of the 16 kb plasmid was cloned. It hybridized to several plasmids of this species (16, 27 and 55 kb). Sequencing of the cloned insert revealed a 327 bp ORF coding for a 14 kDa protein of unknown function, which could be expressed in E. coli. This ORF, conserved among B. burgdorferi sensu stricto strains, was carried by the same three plasmids.