Interesting and unusual results: 104 patients PCR tested for diseases transmitted by ticks.

So the results of this study really caught me by surprise.

Link: https://akjournals.com/view/journals/1886/11/3/article-p62.xml

I'll try to summarize it the best way I can.

These were patients that showed signs of tick related diseases. So they tested them with PCR. Keyword here is PCR because there are problems with the accuracy of that, which I'll explain later and is also explained in the study itself.

One more thing, I haven't found where in what location of the world the patients were. It seems like it's an European journal so I would think there.

These were the results:

Borrelia burgdorferi............0/104 (0%)
Borrelia miyamotoi............1/104 (0.96%)
Borrelia afzelii............1/104 (0.96%)
Borrelia hermsii............2/104 (1.92%)
Ehrlichia spp.............15/104 (14.42%)
Bartonella spp.............4/104 (3.85%)
Bartonella quintana............4/104 (3.85%)
Bartonella henselae............8/104 (7.7%)
Rickettsia spp.............31/104 (29.8%)
Babesia spp.............9/104 (8.65%)
Anaplasma spp.............0/104 (0%)
Francisella tularensis............0/104 (0%)
Brucella spp.............1/104 (0.96%)
Coxiella burnetii............3/104 (2.88%)
Chlamydia spp.............2/104 (1.92%)
Theileria spp.............11/33 (33.3%)
Mycoplasma spp.............91/104 (87.5%)

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I personally had 3 questions after reading this:

- Why so little Lyme?
- Why so much Mycoplasma?
- Why so much Theileria and what is Theileria?

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So the first question is why so little Lyme?
That doesn't correlate with other studies at all.
Luckily it explains in the conclusion:

It could be hypothesized that the frequency of Borrelia is lower than expected or that this bacterium is particularly difficult to detect. Borrelia could be present in deeper locations in a wide range of organs (brain for example) and thus could not be detected in this study, despite the use of several matrices [24].

Something else I noticed is that although PCR tests are usually done with synovial fluids. This was not the case in this study it seems:

"were searched for in saliva, urine, venous and capillary blood by using real time PCR"

They also say these 2 things about it:

" This confirms data from previous studies that showed a low interest of venous blood PCR for the detection of Borrelia. "

"Some studies used PCR to identify B. burgdorferi in early Lyme disease, while we studied it in a chronic stage"

So I think it makes sense why it was so low, seems likely to be an issue with the tools they had.

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Then the next question is the large amount of mycoplasma.
Which is really interesting:

"Some bacteria such as Mycoplasma spp. are not constantly transmitted by ticks and could be commensal bacteria. However, some mycoplasmas such as Mycoplasma fermentans can be transmitted by ticks and be pathogenic [30]. Furthermore, Lyme disease can lead to a depression of the immune system [31], resulting in the occurrence of opportunistic infections, which could include Mycoplasma infections. These microorganisms, in particular Mycoplasma, could be transmitted by other sources than the tick bite, for example by sexual contamination. It might be thus more accurate to change the paradigm, and consider the term “crypto-infections” rather than exclusively “tick-borne infections” [32]."

I think the part about opportunistic infections is interesting here.
It also makes me wonder how much mycoplasma just "hangs around" in people without any symptoms.

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But one of the most interesting things in this study is probably the large amount of Theileria.
I had personally never heard of that.
It's a parasite usually seen in animals. In fact, this is the first study to isolate it from humans.
And it seems like they specifically did their best to isolate it from Babesia:

Theileria pathogen-specific PCR sequences, well known in veterinary medicine as it usually infests horses [25], were never isolated from humans. There is a very great genetic proximity between Babesia microti and Theileria microti and our PCR primers are studied to specifically isolate the genus Babesia from the genus Theileria. The fact that only Babesia species were known in human medicine is not an argument to say that theileriasis is not a human disease. A surprising result is that we isolated much more Theileria spp. than Babesia spp. These preliminary results suggest that Theileria could be a significant pathogen for humans. These results should be confirmed by additional studies.

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In conclusion, I think this is a really interesting study and if you have the time and energy, it's worth looking through.
I like how the authors were open about the limitations of the study because it explains some of the results.
I also think it's interesting to see the high amount of Theileria.

Take care!

Yes. Very interesting. Now we need to find out what the horses with Theileria are treated with and what their symptoms are.

yep i think your conclusions make sense Rainy

lyme is already well known to be very hit and miss by PCR of blood - generally the organism is not in the blood much - but in the tissues

also with all these PCR based studies - they basically look for a small segment of the DNA of the organism matching what is considered a reference sequence for that particular organism
however there are problems

first - someone has to decide what section to se as the reference and what gene sequence should be used for that section - different databases have different sequences - and PCR using one will not necessarily agree with a PCR test using another database. so it matters what database you use

second - while man has an overriding need to understand and classify everything into neat boxes with names for each - the organisms themselves do not know that or care and are instead existing not in neat boxes of this one or that one but on a continuously evolving spectrum - so again there is interpretation needed for what fits into which species box/positive result and what does not. so again rather than totally black and white situation - someone must decide what degree of sequence match you use and how much variation you decide to accept while still reporting a positive.

mycoplasma is very common even in healthy people i think - and spread by close human contact as well as sexually - which may explain some of the prevalence.
still interesting that its so high - perhaps as they suggest - when other chronic illnesses are dragging people down and suppressing the immune system - the mycoplasma gets a chance to prosper rather than getting mopped up by the immune system.

Theileria is closely related to babesia - again there are many many species of it - symptoms expected to be similar to babesia in humans - but then it could well be that many people who think they have babesia - actually have Theileria - it may be that there are even cross reactive FISH or IFA results - i'm not sure if its been studied -
there are a few notable species that have characteristic size or shape differences but most are pleomorphic and and its likely that they are very hard to distinguish from babesia via blood smears and some are simply dots that pick up stain even at the highest magnifications

typically all these things that are spread by arthropod bites cant be too fussy what they infect and therefore have biology compatible with multiple host species for that reason. so its seems likely it will be in humans.

finally - we often have to be aware of who the people are writing the papers we read to understand if there is likely to be conscious or unconscious bias involved.
in this case the main authors seem to work for some kind of testing company in France-
sometime i feel testing companies have an interest in creating a kind of story around what they do
eg - "testing is so complex and hard to understand - and we are the only ones to do it properly"

i'm not saying that is necessarily tthecase here - just that we always have to be mindful of who is writing and what their interests might be.

Post Edited (Garzie) : 11/26/2021 9:08:00 AM (GMT-7)

i have a positive result from Armin for Mycoplasma Pneumoniae
positive IgG antibodies and mildly positive IgA antibodies

hard to know how much of an impact its is having on my health condition

i tend to think of mycoplasma as something our immune systems should be able to deal with ok on its own if we are not too knocked about