Journal of Bacteriology, May 2000, p. 2476-2480, Vol. 182, No. 9
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Department of Oncological Sciences, University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City, Utah 84132,1 and The Institute for Genome Science, Rockville, Maryland 208502
Received 28 October 1999/Accepted 4 February 2000
We have analyzed a panel of independent North American isolates of the Lyme disease agent spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu stricto), for the presence of linear plasmids with sequence similarities to the 12 linear plasmids present in the B. burgdorferi type strain, isolate B31. The frequency of similarities to probes from each of the 12 B31 plasmids varied from 13 to 100% in the strain panel examined, and these similarities usually reside on plasmids similar in size to the cognate B31 plasmid. Sequences similar to 5 of the 12 B31 plasmids were found in all of the isolates examined, and >66% of the panel members hybridized to probes from 4 other plasmids. Sequences similar to most of the B. burgdorferi B31 plasmid-derived DNA probes used were also found on linear plasmids in the related Eurasian Lyme agents Borrelia garinii and Borrelia afzelii; however, some of these plasmids had uniform but substantially different sizes from their B. burgdorferi counterparts.
Present address: Slotervaart Ziekenhuis, Afdeling Bacteriologie,
1066 EC Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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