Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • Vascular Malformations (Apr 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
Resistance to Lyme disease in decorin-deficient mice
Eric L. Brown, … , Janis J. Weis, Magnus Höök
Eric L. Brown, … , Janis J. Weis, Magnus Höök
Published April 1, 2001
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2001;107(7):845-852. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI11692.
View: Text | PDF
Article

Resistance to Lyme disease in decorin-deficient mice

  • Text
  • PDF
Abstract

Microbial adhesion to the host tissue represents an early, critical step in the pathogenesis of most infectious diseases. Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease (LD), expresses two surface-exposed decorin-binding adhesins, DbpA and DbpB. A decorin-deficient (Dcn–/–) mouse was recently developed and found to have a relatively mild phenotype. We have now examined the process of experimental LD in Dcn–/– mice using both needle inoculation and tick transmission of spirochetes. When exposed to low doses of the infective agent, Dcn–/– mice had fewer Borrelia-positive cultures from most tissues analyzed than did Dcn+/+ or Dcn+/– mice. When the infection dose was increased, similar differences were not observed in most tissues but were seen in bacterial colonization of joints and the extent of Borrelia-induced arthritis. Quantitative PCR demonstrated that joints harvested from Dcn–/– mice had diminished Borrelia numbers compared with issues harvested from Dcn+/+ controls. Histological examination also revealed a low incidence and severity of arthritis in Dcn–/– mice. Conversely, no differences in the numbers of Borrelia-positive skin cultures were observed among the different genotypes regardless of the infection dose. These differences, which were observed regardless of genetic background of the mice (BALB/c or C3H/HeN) or method of infection, demonstrate the importance of decorin in the pathogenesis of LD.

Authors

Eric L. Brown, R. Mark Wooten, Barbara J.B. Johnson, Renato V. Iozzo, Amanda Smith, Marc C. Dolan, Betty P. Guo, Janis J. Weis, Magnus Höök

×
Options: View larger image (or click on image) Download as PowerPoint
Arthritis development in BALB/c mice after infection with Borrelia burgd...

Arthritis development in BALB/c mice after infection with Borrelia burgdorferiA at 14 days after infection


Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts