Fitness of selected genes required for <i>Borrelia burgdorferi</i> survival in larval ticks.

(A) Frequency ratios of individual Tn mutants with insertions into the indicated genes known to be important in B. burgdorferi survival in the tick. The frequency ratios of individual Tn mutants with insertions in these genes are shown for both replicates. The median is indicated with a bar. An open shape indicates that no reads were recovered for this mutant and for the purposes of calculation the read number was set to one. (B) Individual Tn mutants were mixed in a one to one ratio with the parental strain 5A18NP1 or the respective complemented strain, and the mixtures were used to infect larvae. After a blood meal these larvae were crushed and plated with appropriate antibiotics to distinguish between the Tn mutant and the complemented strain (or parental strain). Competitive Indices (CI) were determined. Closed shapes indicate that the Tn mutant was recovered following the competition experiment. Open shapes indicate no Tn mutants were recovered following competition experiment. In these cases, the number of Tn mutants recovered was set to one for the purposes of calculation. Statistical significance was determined by one sample t test (***, P<0.0001). (Statistics performed on GraphPad Prism version 7, GraphPad Software, LaJolla California).