I did a quickie search and couldn't find much of anything about it, but I didn't search like my life depended on it either. What I did see was almost "evasive", or just totally lacking solid information for some reason.
One good point, it was designed to detect B. Miyamotoi, a strain not normally tested for by commercial labs.
A bad point, quote- "The new test cannot detect older infections; after a month or so the protein it searches for is no longer in a patient's blood."
WHY you need an ILADS "educated" or "minded" Lyme Literate doctor (whether MD or ND, or both) - starting with assessment / evaluation for lyme, OTHER tick-borne diseases, and other chronic stealth infections - and all that goes along for the ride.
Medical "models" explained here, as to differences in the ISDA & ILADS models of assessment & treatment - and exactly why it is so very important to know the differences. -
Posted by Tincup (Member # 5829) on :
Don't think so Chipster, but there may be (probably is) more info I didn't locate.
To answer 6t5... If you check the second link I posted above you'll see this statement.
"The new test cannot detect older infections; after a month or so the protein it searches for is no longer in a patient's blood."
Posted by miyamotoi (Member # 41833) on :
This is an important development. PCR with sequencing has a potential to detect and identify the exact species and strain of Borrelia. The current antibody test is very sensitive to Bb strain and almost always fails with other species. There have been at least 4 other species of Borrelia found in the US besides the common burgdorferi species.
Nested PCR can be up to a thousand times more sensitive. It is the type of PCR used by most University researchers because it can detect down to a low number of spirochetes and by performing it multiple times, the odds of finding a spirochete can be multiplied.
By then sequencing the detected genes, the exact species and strain can be identified from the NCBI and other databases.
So its the first time nested PCR that can catch any species of Borrelia in fairly low quantities with sequencing has been made available outside research labs.
The researcher in this lab has published a number of papers describing their nested PCR procedure and its being done correctly.
There is no magic in Sanger sequencing as this is the underlying method Frederick Sanger received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its invention.
Since the test only costs $150, its possible to double the odds of finding Borrelia by 2X for $300 and quadruple for $600 etc.. The combination of the nested PCR, sequencing and low price do make this an important new test.
Posted by miyamotoi (Member # 41833) on :
Here is a link to the lab describing the nested PCR and sequencing: