Destruction of spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi by Tigecycline

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/16/0908236106
Destruction of spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi round-body propagules (RBs) by the antibiotic Tigecycline
Øystein Brorsona, Sverre-Henning Brorsonb, John Scythesc, James MacAllisterd, Andrew Wiere,1 and Lynn Margulisd,2
aDepartment of Microbiology, Sentralsykehuset i Vestfold HF, N-3116 Tonsberg, Norway;
bDepartment of Pathology, Rikshospitalet, N-0027 Oslo, Norway;
cGlad Day Bookshop, Toronto, ON, Canada M4Y 1Z3;
dDepartment of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003; and
eDepartment of Medical Microbiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706
1Present address: Department of Biology and Health Sciences, Pace University, 861 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570-2799.
Contributed by Lynn Margulis, July 31, 2009 (sent for review May 4, 2009)

Abstract
Persistence of tissue spirochetes of Borrelia burgdorferi as helices and round bodies (RBs) explains many erythema-Lyme disease symptoms. Spirochete RBs (reproductive propagules also called coccoid bodies, globular bodies, spherical bodies, granules, cysts, L-forms, sphaeroplasts, or vesicles) are induced by environmental conditions unfavorable for growth. Viable, they grow, move and reversibly convert into motile helices. Reversible pleiomorphy was recorded in at least six spirochete genera (>12 species). Penicillin solution is one unfavorable condition that induces RBs. This antibiotic that inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis cures neither the second “Great Imitator” (Lyme borreliosis) nor the first: syphilis. Molecular-microscopic techniques, in principle, can detect in animals (insects, ticks, and mammals, including patients) helices and RBs of live spirochetes. Genome sequences of B. burgdorferi and Treponema pallidum spirochetes show absence of >75% of genes in comparison with their free-living relatives. Irreversible integration of spirochetes at behavioral, metabolic, gene product and genetic levels into animal tissue has been documented. Irreversible integration of spirochetes may severely impair immunological response such that they persist undetected in tissue. We report in vitro inhibition and destruction of B. burgdorferi (helices, RBs = “cysts”) by the antibiotic Tigecycline (TG; Wyeth), a glycylcycline protein-synthesis inhibitor (of both 30S and 70S ribosome subunits). Studies of the pleiomorphic life history stages in response to TG of both B. burgdorferi and Treponema pallidum in vivo and in vitro are strongly encouraged.

bacterial resistant stages
doxycycline
medical symbiotics
multiple sclerosis
spirochete cysts
Footnotes
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lynn.margulis{at}balliol.ox.ac.uk or lynn{at}sagantechnology.com
Author contributions: Ø.B. designed research; Ø.B. and S.-H.B. performed research; S.-H.B. and L.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; J.S., J.M., A.W., and L.M. analyzed data; L.M. wrote the paper; and J.S., J.M., A.W., and L.M. provided graphics.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.