Innate immune responses to <i>Borrelia burgdorferi</i> during tick-feeding: mechanistic insights relevant to Lyme disease

study on local and systemic immune responses to Bb during tick feeding on a surrogate reservoir host, in comparison with uninfected-tick and subcutaneously delivered Bb. We show that uninfected-tick and tick-transmitted Bb engaged mixed type-1/type-2/type-17 immune responses in the presence of anti-inflammatory IL-10, in contrast to a type-1 response induced by subcutaneously delivered Bb. Analyses of immune responses to tick-transmitted Bb in a reservoir host can enlighten immunity mechanisms that mediate persistence of Bb.