Lyme microbe forms convenient bond with tick protein

Tests in mice indicate that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease can commandeer a gene in its interim host—the deer tick—enabling the bacterium to escape immune detection once inside a mammal.

Researchers at Yale University report in the July 28 Nature that the Lyme microbe, Borrelia burgdorferi, activates a gene in the tick, boosting production of a salivary protein called Salp-15.