it is of unknown significance

others say it is a flagellin fragment

others say it is strong indicator for the european alfezi strain

others say it is specific to NA burdorferi strain

Since it does not appear that much on the WB's that have been posted here it may be none of the above????

Any ideas?

ALSO

My notes (may be out of date) say that to "qualify" for a longer standing infection (in other words, not a recently received infection) the patient must show reaction to the following IgG bands: 18kD, 21kD, 28kD, 30kD, 39kD, 41kD, 45kD, 58kD, 66kD, 93kD.

The 18kD was not on the IgM (indicator of recent exposure) list.

Now what if you have a very strong 18 Kda band on IgM but all weak bands on IgG.

In this case IgM was CDC positive not including 18Kda, which is not on the CDC hit list anyway.

Conventional though would indicate that this is a recent infection but the history does not support this. Also with 18 Kda being strongly positive and other bands being weaker on IgM, I am trying to figure out state of infection as well as possible source (europe or NA).

David, this is a good question. If there were reliable enough tests to determine strains, then data could be compiled to eventually learn what treatment seems to work best for specific strains.

Where was your test done? I read recently that IGeneX tests will show positive for two different strains now.--

I'm editing now to clarify. IGeneX is using two strains of Lyme to test:

"Unlike many labs, IGeneX uses two strains of the Lyme bacteria (B31 and 297), so it's more likely to detect strains from the Midwestern US and Europe. It also tests for the late Lyme markers of 31kDa and 34kDa, which take 6 months to develop, and aren't always included in other labs's Western Blot tests."

This was in KrisKraft's Lyme Conf. notes. Here's the link:
http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/029236.html

Actually, this is not my WB results. Mine are all late stage IgG only and tne only after I went sero positive after intensive treatment, prior to which I had only a 41+ and some other +/-bands.

The the person with the strong 18Kda WB results has sporadic neurological symptoms (7th cranial nerve) and transient peripheral neuropathy but no joint problems, which leads to the questions about european strains.

This also leads to the next question about exposure, with human vector being the most possible (note I did not say most likely), but not if it is euro strain.

On the ability of Lyme to not show up at all becuase of it ability to change its self, this is not really possible. The bug modifies its outer proteins. These are the one that are attacked by the anti bodies as well as the abx. The WB based test looks for some of the outer surface anitbodies that the WB tests for,but there are a lot of bands that are tested which correspond to bits and pieces of the inside guts of the bug, 41 Kda, being the most noteworthy.

When the bug is killed, the guts spill out and some of these pieces are picked up and attacked by the the immune system, thus the antibodies. 18Kda appears to be one of these, but then again based on the literature, maybe not....??? ~!@#$%