Lyme Disease Research

Borrelia burgdorferiis a bacterium that is transmitted by ticks and is the primary causative agent of Lyme disease, a progressive disorder with skin, cardiovascular, and neuromuscular complications. While this bacterium is normally associated with forested areas in rural environments, it was recently found in the greater Chicago area. Undergraduates at North Park University are actively involved in both field and lab work to collect and characterize B. burgdorferi from Chicago. Students are obtaining hands-on experience and generating data that they have the opportunity to present at regional and national scientific meetings.

Field Work

North Park University students have collaborated with researchers from Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation Microbiology Research Laboratory in La Crosse Wisconsin, public health officials and forest preserve scientists to assess the distribution of Ixodes scapularis ticks( deer ticks) in the Chicago area. We have documented the presence of deer ticks in Du Page county, Cook county and Lake county in northeastern Illinois. We have established that these ticks harbor the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi and assessed infection rates in the populations we have found. This work has
given healthcare providers information they need to assess individual patients risk for this for this tick-borne disease. This work has led to two recent publications and numerous public health communications.

Refer to Lyme disease in Illinois for information for healthcare providers.

Molecular Research

Molecular Fingerprinting of Borrelia burgdorferi in Chicago by Drs. Matthew Schau and Justin Topp

Borrelia burgdorferi is a bacterium that is transmitted by ticks and is the primary causative agent of Lyme disease, a progressive disorder with skin, cardiovascular, and neuromuscular complications. While this bacterium is normally associated with forested areas in rural environments, it was recently found by Dr. Jeff Nelson (North Park University) and collaborators (Gunderson Lutheran Medical Foundation) in the greater Chicago area. Specifically, ticks containing B. burgdorferi were isolated at multiple sites in DuPage, Lake and Cook counties, indicating that the potential for Lyme disease transmission exists for the greater than seven million people that live in this metropolis. Although this shows the existence of B. burgdorferi in Chicago, there is little to nothing known about the biology of these particular isolates. The focus of the Schau and Topp lab currently is to use molecular fingerprinting tools to characterize the B. burgdorferi isolates recently collected. Three techniques, sequencing of the ospA gene, RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) and RAPD (random amplification of polymorphic DNA), are being used to examine a variety of isolates from a geographically diverse sampling from this region. The patterns generated for these isolates from these techniques will be compared to each other to assess the homogeneity of the population and to previously published patterns to identify any possible unique strains among the isolates. Representative strains will then be pursued to provide a better understanding of Borrelia disease transmission.