Molecular Typing on Human Blood Reveals the Borrelia afzelii Infection in Korea

Yeon-Sook Kim; Jeoungyeon Kim; Yeon-Joo Choi; Taeuk Kang; Hye-Jin Park; Won-Jong Jang

doi:10.3947/ic.2023.0094

Molecular Typing on Human Blood Reveals the Borrelia afzelii Infection in Korea

Infect Chemother. 2023 Dec;55(4):500-504. doi: 10.3947/ic.2023.0094.

Authors

Yeon-Sook Kim¹, Jeoungyeon Kim², Yeon-Joo Choi², Taeuk Kang², Hye-Jin Park², Won-Jong Jang³

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Chungnam National University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea.
² Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea.
³ Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea. wjjang@kku.ac.kr.

Abstract

Lyme disease is a tick-borne infection in Korea. Here, clinical samples were collected from a 72-year old patient, with sudden onset of fever on April, 2018. The patient was passed away after 3rd day of doxycycline administration. The molecular diagnostic tests, nested polymerase chain reaction targeting 5S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer region (IGS) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST), showed positive for Borrelia afzelii from blood. Further, mutations in both 5S - 23S IGS and pepX allele of MLST were determined. Herein, we report the expected first death case by B. afzelii infection in Korea.

Keywords: 5S-23S IGS; Borrelia afzelii; Lyme disease; MLST.