The main causative agents of Slovenian endemic zoonozis Lyme boreliosis include borrelia within the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex. MluI-large restriction fragment patterns (MluI-LRFP) is one of the major identification methods that perfectly types borrelia up to species and subspecies level. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time of flight identification method (MALDI-TOF) is also coming to the forefront as pathogen identification method. In our research work, we were interested in whether we can succesfully indetify borrelia up to species level with both the MluI-LRFP method and MALDI-TOF method. With MluI-LRFP method, 93 borrelia isolates were successfully identified to the species and subspecies level of which 63,4 % isolates represented Borrelia afzelii Mla1, 31,2 % Borrelia garinii Mlg2, 1,05 % Borrelia garinii Mlg4, 1,05 % Borrelia garinii Mlg1, 1,05 % Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto Mlg8 and 2,1 % Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto Mlg2. With the MALDI-TOF method, 90,3 % isolates were successfully identified to the species level, which was previously typed with the MluI-LRFP method. For the remaining 9,7 % isolates we determined only the level of genus or we failed to determine any identification. We found that with both methods we can successfully identify borrelia of lyme boreliosis up to species level, while the MluI-LRFP method remains the better choice for delineation within species. The methods were compared and evaluated.
|
