Effects of transposon mutations in genes involved in flagellar assembly and chemotaxis on <i>I. scapularis</i> nymph transmission of <i>B. burgdorferi</i> clones to C3H/HeN mice.^a

<p> <b>Results obtained by needle inoculation and Luminex STM analysis are shown for comparison.^b</b></p><p>a Ticks were infected by capillary feeding with <i>in vitro</i> cultured <i>B. burgdorferi</i> and then fed on uninfected mice (see Materials and Methods). Separate groups of ticks were infected with each <i>B. burgdorferi</i> clone and used for tick inoculation of groups of 3 mice. The parental strain B315A18NP1 was used as a positive control in each of the 6 tick inoculation experiments shown.</p><p>b For comparison, needle inoculation STM results for the same clones are shown; these represent the cumulative results for all time points and tissues (see Spreadsheet S2). Results obtained for the STM positive control strain T02P01A01 in the corresponding STM experiments are provided at the bottom of the table.</p><p>c Number of spirochetes per field as detected by direct immunofluorescence with an anti-<i>B. burgdorferi</i> antiserum.</p><p>d Antibody to the VlsE C6 peptide.</p><p>e ND = Not Done.</p><p>f Culture positivity was due to the presence of a second clone with an unaltered <i>cheY-2</i> gene in the T05TC230 culture.</p><p>gMG064 is a transposon mutant from a non-STM library (D. J. Botkin and S. J. Norris, unpublished data). Chromosomal insertion site = 721,311 bp.