The effect of gelatin on the growth of Borrelia spirochetes was evaluated in the second part of this study. The results indicated that gelatin inhibits growth of B. burgdorferi CA4 and B. bissettii CA389 in BSK H and BSK II media and has no significant effect on the growth rate of B. corieaceae CA435 in BSK H. This suggests that various genospecies of Borrelia respond differently to a given environmental factors (e.g. media's viscosity), emphasizing the difficulty in cultivating these spirochetes. Norris et al. (1997) have shown that process of culturing Borrelia spirochetes in BSK H media isolates a limited number of the genospecies circulating in a population. Other studies have shown that various culture conditions, such as, osmotic strength, dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide concentration, and temperature of the growth media can influence retention and/or expression of the infective phenotype (Elias et al. 1998; Austin 1993). According to this study gelatin concentration or medium's viscosity may also play an important role in growth of Borrelia; however, a greater number of isolates should be evaluated in order to determine the effects of gelatin on the individual genospecies of Borrelia and the optimal viscosity of the growth media. The results of this study suggest that BSK H has superior growth supporting capabilities. For that reason, direct comparisons of research results using spirochetes maintained in BSK H and BSK II media are inadequate, and re-evaluation of the studies that used BSK II as the growth media is warranted.
Interesting huh?
[This message has been edited by treepatrol (edited 03 March 2005).]
Posted by achey (Member # 6284) on :
man you guys are geniouses! I can't understand so much right now! I used to be considered pretty intelligent. Glad someone else still is!
