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| The anti microbial agent melittin exhibits powerful in vitro inhibitory effects on the Lyme disease spirochete. Borrelia burgdorferi has demonstrated a capacity to resist the in virto effects of powerful eukaryotic and prokaryotic metabolic inhibitors. However, treatment of laboratory cultures on Barbour-Stoenner-Kelly medium with melittin, a 26 amino acid peptide contained in honeybee venom, showed immediate and profound inhibitory effects when they were monitor by dark field microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and optical density measurements. Furthermore, at melittin concentrations as low as 100 mcg/ml, virtually all spirochete motility ceased within seconds of inhibitor addition. |
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| Ultra structural examination of these spirochetes by scanning electron microscopy revealed obvious alterations in the surface envelope of the spirochetes. The extraordinary sensitivity of B. burgdorferi to melittin my provide both a research reagent useful in the study of selective permeability in microorganisms and important clues to the development of effective new drugs against Lyme. This abstract appeared in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases July 1997. The CID home page is: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/ |
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| The Rocky Mountain
Laboratories Microscopy Branch, National Institute of Allergy and Infections
Diseases, National Institutes Of Health, Hamilton, Montana 59840.
Winton Rd. East Brunswick, NJ 08816 |
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