Borrelia miyamotoi Serology in a Clinical Population With Persistent Symptoms and Suspected Tick-Borne Illness

Shannon L Delaney; Lilly A Murray; Claire E Aasen; Clair E Bennett; Ellen Brown; Brian A Fallon

doi:10.3389/fmed.2020.567350

Borrelia miyamotoi Serology in a Clinical Population With Persistent Symptoms and Suspected Tick-Borne Illness

Front Med (Lausanne). 2020 Oct 27:7:567350. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.567350. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Shannon L Delaney^{1

2}, Lilly A Murray^{1

2}, Claire E Aasen¹, Clair E Bennett^{1

2}, Ellen Brown^{1

2}, Brian A Fallon^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.
² New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.

Abstract

Eighty-two patients seeking consultation for long-term sequalae after suspected tick-borne illness were consecutively tested for Borrelia miyamotoi antibodies using a recombinant glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase (GlpQ) enzyme immunoassay. Twenty-one of the 82 patients (26%) tested positive on the GlpQ IgG ELISA. Nearly all of the patients (98%) had no prior B. miyamotoi testing, indicating that clinicians rarely test for this emerging tick-borne pathogen. Compared to patients who solely tested positive for Lyme disease antibodies, patients with B. miyamotoi antibodies presented with significantly more sleepiness and pain. A prospective study is needed to ascertain the relationship between the presence of B. miyamotoi antibodies and persistent symptoms.

Keywords: Borrelia miyamotoi disease; Lyme disease; borreliosis; post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome; relapsing fever borrelia; serodiagnosis.