A divergent spirochete strain isolated from a resident of the southeastern United States was identified by multilocus sequence typing as Borrelia bissettii.

Abstract

Here, we present the analysis of the first North American human originated live spirochete strain that revealed close relatedness to B. bissettii. The potential of B. bissettii to cause human disease, even if it is infrequent, is of importance for clinicians due to the extensive range of its geographic distribution.