and Can Form Mixed Biofilms in Infected Human Skin Tissues.

Our research group has recently shown that , the Lyme disease bacterium, is capable of forming biofilms in Borrelia-infected human skin lesions called lymphocytoma (BL). Biofilm structures often contain multiple organisms in a symbiotic relationship, with the goal of providing shelter from environmental stressors such as antimicrobial agents. Because multiple co-infections are common in Lyme disease, the main questions of this study were whether BL tissues contained other pathogenic species and/or whether there is any co-existence with biofilms. Recent reports suggested -like organisms in ticks and -infected human skin tissues; therefore, -specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses were performed in -positive BL tissues. Analyses of the sequence of the positive PCR bands revealed that spp. DNAs are indeed present in these tissues, and their sequences have the best identity match to and Fluorescent immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization methods demonstrated the presence of antigen and DNA in 84% of biofilms. Confocal microscopy revealed that locates in the center of biofilms, and together, they form a well-organized mixed pathogenic structure. In summary, our study is the first to show mixed biofilms in infected human skin tissues, which raises the questions of whether these human pathogens have developed a symbiotic relationship for their mutual survival.