New Genome Announces Change in the Fight Against Lyme Disease

As Lyme disease increases, researchers have taken an important step in finding new ways to prevent it from spreading. The experts, who are among the pioneers of the discovery of Lyme disease, have sequenced the genome of the animal carrying the bacteria at the origin of the disease. Advancing researchers from the University of California, Irvine and his colleagues provides a springboard to new approaches to prevent Lyme disease from infecting people.

The results of their study appear today in Progress of science.

Scientists have spent four years decoding the genetic composition of the white-footed mouse Peromyscus leucopus, which hosts the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Unlike mice that return home, these rodents live in forests, shrubs and wetlands. People are infected when a tick stings them after being fed a white-footed mouse carrying the bacteria.

"Many efforts to fight Lyme disease have focused on tick control, but they have been difficult to put into practice," said Lyme disease pioneer Alan Barbour. "So we decided to watch the animal that was wearing it. "

Barbour co-discovered Borreliella burgdorferi, the bacteria at the origin of the disease. He is a professor of medicine, microbiology and molecular genetics at the UCI School of Medicine.

Anthony Long, Ph.D., professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the UCI, Anthony Long, Ph.D., then collaborated with Barbour and other researchers at the complex task of determining the sequence of the DNA letter that constitutes the genome of the animal. With 2.45 billion of these letters, representing nucleotides that form the basic structural unit of DNA, its genome has a similar size to that of humans.

"If you want to understand a species, know that its genetic plan is invaluable," said Long, a geneticist and genomist. "It provides a roadmap that makes new search approaches much faster and more efficient." Although these rodents call mice, they are more closely related to hamsters than to the domestic mouse and the new data from the researchers pointed to this fact.

With the genome in hand, scientists are interested in several potential pathways to preventing the transmission of Lyme disease. Among these are the development of a humane and environmentally safe vaccination method for white-footed mice in the wild, a process already used to prevent rabies transmission through from other types of animals.

They would also like to know why rodents do not develop Lyme disease even though they carry the bacteria. "Understanding what protects them from the disease could help protect humans," said Barbour. He noted that in addition to Lyme disease, rodents were carriers of other emerging infections, including a form of viral encephalitis and diseases similar to malaria and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

The genome of the white-footed mouse is now available as a free download for anyone who is interested in Lyme disease or microorganisms causing additional diseases that can be transferred from the rodent carrier to the next one. man. Scientists say they hope this information will help others fight this transmission.

The researchers say that as their investigations progress, it is very important that the public continue to protect themselves against Lyme disease by preventing tick bites. Information on how to protect people, pets and insect gardens is available on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

The number of confirmed and probable cases of Lyme disease in the United States has increased by more than 17% between 2016 and 2017, from 36,429 to 42,743, according to the CDC. Noting that these figures are probably only a fraction of the actual amount, the number of reported cases has tripled since the late 1990s.

The CDC cites several factors that have contributed to the rise of Lyme, including the growth of forests on formerly agricultural lands, the development of suburbs in these areas, and changes in ecological patterns due to climate change.