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Differentiating Tick-Borne Relapsing Fever From Lyme Disease: Immunoblots

January 20, 2024

Journal of Vector Borne Diseases (Shah, J., et al.) 12.2023, published “Recombinant protein immunoblots for differential diagnosis of tick-borne relapsing fever and Lyme disease.” In this article, authors review the application of line immunoblots (IBs) that are used to detect antibodies in patient sera for both diagnosis and differentiation of Tick-Borne Relapsing (TBRF) and Lyme disease (LD).

TBRF and LD share many clinical symptoms and pathogens can occur in overlapping geographic locations. The need for differentiation of these diseases is critical to track true prevalence of disease. Testing only for Lyme disease bacteria or antibodies when a patient presents with Borreliosis symptoms may miss detection of the TBRF pathogen.

The utilization of recombinant proteins in immunoblots for the serodiagnosis of TBRF and LD builds on methods that have demonstrated effectiveness for many other infectious diseases (ex. syphilis, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas’ disease). The development and validation of immunoblot tests capable of differentiating between TBRF and LD will be an important diagnostic advance to enhance early detection and more accurate surveillance of these diseases.

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Read the Journal of Vector Borne Disease Article