Detection of the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, by using the polymerase chain reaction and a nonradioisotopic gene probe.

A 419-bp region of the flagellin gene sequence of Borrelia burgdorferi was used as a target for the polymerase chain reaction. With a nonradioactively labeled gene-specific probe, sensitivity to as few as 1 to 10 spirochetes was observed. The targeted gene fragment was conserved in the American and European strains of B. burgdorferi tested and among several other pathogenic borreliae.