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Lyme disease descibes the clinical syndrome caused by infection with ''[[Borrelia burgdorferi]]'' in humans, dogs, horses, cattle and sheep. The disease is named after the town of Lyme[http://townlyme.org/] in Connecticut, USA where clinical cases were first described in humans in 1975.
Lyme disease descibes the clinical syndrome caused by infection with ''[[Borrelia burgdorferi]]'' in humans, dogs, horses, cattle and sheep. The disease is named after the town of Lyme[http://townlyme.org/] in Connecticut, USA where clinical cases were first described in humans in 1975.
The bacterium is transmitted by ticks of which the most common is ''[[Ixodes ricinus]]'' in the UK. ''I. ricinus'' is a three host tick that acquires ''B. burgdorferi'' bacteria when it obtains a blood meal from small rodents as a larva or nymph and transmits it to large mammals as an adult. Lyme disease therefore occurs when domestic animals and humans enter areas of tick habitat.
The bacterium is transmitted by ticks of which the most common is ''[[Ixodes spp.|Ixodes ricinus]]'' in the UK. ''I. ricinus'' is a three host tick that acquires ''B. burgdorferi'' bacteria when it obtains a blood meal from small rodents as a larva or nymph and then transmits it to large mammals as an adult. Lyme disease therefore occurs when domestic animals and humans enter areas of tick habitat.
===Pathophysiology===
===Pathophysiology===
The virulence of the borreliae is associated with a change in expression of an outer membrane protein (OMP) after introduction into the mammalian host. The bacteria multiply in the blood stream of susceptible hosts and disseminate throughout the body, loaclising particularly in the joints, brain, nerves, eyes and heart. The immune response to the bacterial OMPs cross-reacts with epitopes present of host proteins and the lesions that are observed in Lyme disease may in part be caused by this immune response.
==Signalment==
==Signalment==