Borrelia burgdorferi is a bacterial species of the spirochete class of the genus Borrelia, which has a double-membrane envelope. B. burgdorferi is predominant in North America, but also exists in Europe, and is the agent of Lyme disease.
Lyme disease is a zoonotic, vector-borne disease transmitted by the Ixodes tick (also the vector for Babesia); the causative agent is named after the researcher Willy Burgdorfer, who first isolated the bacterium in 1982. B. burgdorferi is one of the few pathogenic bacteria that can survive without iron, having replaced all of its iron-sulfur cluster enzymes with enzymes that use manganese, thus avoiding the problem many pathogenic bacteria face in acquiring iron. It takes more than 24 hours of attachment for transfer of B. burgdorferi, making regular "tick checks" helpful in preventing infection.
B. burgdorferi infections have been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphomas.
B. burgdorferi (B31 strain) was the third microbial genome ever sequenced, following the sequencing of both Haemophilus influenzae and Mycoplasma genitalium in 1995, and contains 910,725 base pairs and 853 genes. The sequencing method used was whole genome shotgun. The sequencing project, completed and published in Nature in 1997, was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research.
Lyme disease clinical features include the characteristic bull's eye rash and erythema chronicum migrans (a rash which spreads peripherally and spares the central part), as well as myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, arrythmia, arthritis, arthralgia, meningitis, neuropathies and facial nerve palsy.
It is common in the northeastern, midwest and western United States.