Is there a place for xenodiagnosis in the clinic?

Abstract

Whether Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, can persist after antibiotic therapy is an area of ongoing controversy. In animal models, B. burgdorferi DNA can be detected in tissues after antibiotic therapy as well as by using the natural tick vector to acquire the organism through feeding (xenodiagnosis). Vector arthropods have been successfully used in xenodiagnosis to describe the etiology of infections such as malaria, typhus and Chagas disease. Our recent safety trial of xenodiagnosis demonstrates that ticks may be successfully fed on patients and may help determine the biological basis for post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome.

Keywords::

• Borrelia burgdorferi
• clinical trial
• Ixodes dammini
• Lyme disease
• xenodiagnosis

Financial & competing interests disclosure

SR Telford is a senior consulting scientist with Imugen, Inc., and consultant to Immunetics Inc. and Fuller Laboratories. The authors’ research is funded by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH Bench to Bedside program, and R21AI082436. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.