Detection and genotyping of Borrelia burgdorferii in ticks from Liupanshan area of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

Objective To detect and identify the genotype of Borrelia burgdorferii(B.burgdoferii) in ticks from Liupanshan area of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.Methods Totally 206 ticks of four species were collected.On the basis of 5S-23S rRNA in tergenic spacer,a nested PCR method was applied to detectB.burgdorferii in ticks.Restriction frag ment length polymorphism(RFLP) based on 5S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer of B.burgdorferii were applied for determ ina tion of the genotype.Results Among all ticks examined,37 ticks were positive for B.burgdorferii with an infection rate of 17.96 %.There were significant differences in positive rates among different tick species;the positive rate was the highest in Haemaphvslis qingha iensis(59.37%).RFLP methods showed that B.burgdorferii in ticks belonged to B.garinii,and could be further subclassfied in to 2 different groups.Conclusion The findings confirme the existence of B.burgdor ferii in ticks from Ningxia HuiAutonom ous Resion and its genotype belongs to B.garinii.