A specific outer-surface protein found in the bacterium that causes tick-borne Lyme disease is essential to survival of the bacterium in its natural life cycle and colonization in the insect, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found.A study published online today in The Journal of Experimental Medicine provides the first proof of a long-held theory that outer surface lipoprotein A (OspA) must be present for Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) - the bacterium that causes Lyme disease - to colonize in ticks.
