Borreliosis – up-dates in identification technologies and world-wide incidence

"Lyme disease triggered by infected ticks can affect over 300,000 people/ year in USA and 65,000 people/ year in Europe mainly in spring and summer. The early symptoms fever, headache and tiredness can evolve if left untreated in joint pains, facial paralysis, headaches with neck stiffness, heart palpitations. Moreover about 10 - 20% of patients will continue to develop months/years to come joint pains, memory issues and tiredness. Humans from all the continents interact with ticks and this interaction is measured indirectly, by relating tick population abundance, pathogen prevalence, and registered human borreliosis. Lyme borreliosis caused by bacteria of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species, is the most widespread tick-borne infection registered in the northern hemisphere. Diagnostics starts with the clinical evaluation of the infected patient and is complemented by laboratory testing. FDA recommendation published in 2019 recommend a two-test methodology, as a first test the methodology is based on sensitive enzyme immunoassay (EIA) (replaceable with an immunofluorescence assay), followed by a western immunoblot (WB) assay for positive or equivocal results. These tests have several down -falls thus focusing on using various proteomic/metabolomic/genomic technologies for early stages of infection identification these down-falls can be surpassed. Borrelia burgdorferi has several proteins that can be involved in the hosts immune response. Identification of protective epitopes that could be used to develop a new vaccine becomes imperative as new prophylactic methods can reduce the incidence of this wide-spread disease."