Identification of Borrelia Species after Creation of an In-House MALDI-TOF MS Database

Lyme borreliosis (LB) is a multisystemic disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (sl) complex transmitted to humans by Ixodes ticks. B. burgdorferi sl complex, currently comprising at least 19 genospecies, includes the main pathogenic species responsible for human disease in Europe: B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (ss), B. afzelii, and B. garinii. In this study, for the first time, MALDI-TOF MS was applied to Borrelia spp., supplementing the existing database, limited to the species B. burgdorferi ss, B. spielmanii and B. garinii, with the species B. afzelii, in order to enable the identification of all the species potentially implicated in LB in Europe. Moreover, we supplemented the database also with B. hermsii, which is the primary cause of tick-borne relapsing fever in western North America, B. japonica, circulating in Asia, and another reference strain of B. burgdorferi ss (B31 strain). The dendrogram obtained by analyzing the protein profiles of the different Borrelia species reflected Borrelia taxonomy, showing that all the species included in the Borrelia sl complex clustered in a unique branch, while Borrelia hermsii clustered separately. In conclusion, in this study MALDI-TOF MS proved a useful tool suitable for identification of Borrelia spp. both for diagnostic purpose and epidemiological surveillance.