Lyme disease is an inflammatory disorder of skin, joints, nervous system, and heart. The disease is associated with a preceding
tick bite and is ameliorated by
penicillin treatment. A spirochete (IDS) isolated from Ixodes dammini ticks has been implicated as the etiologic agent of
Lyme disease. We examined the antibody responses of
Lyme disease patients to IDS lysate components in order to further understand the pathogenesis of this disease. The components were separated by
sodium dodecyl sulfate-
polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, transferred to
nitrocellulose, reacted with patients' sera, and the bound
IgG was detected with 125I-labeled
protein A (western blot). We found that (a)
Lyme disease patients had
antibodies to IDS components (b) most patients studied had
antibodies to two components with apparent subunit molecular weights of 41,000 and 60,000, and (c) the patients' antibody responses during illness and remission were specific, for the most part, for the IDS. In contrast to the findings with
Lyme disease sera, sera from controls showed little reactivity with IDS components in either the western blots or a derivative solid-phase radioimmunoassay.