Video: Lyme bacteria interacting with blood vessels
(Credit: Devender Kumar / University of Calgary)
For those of you who like geeky things, this cool video was uploaded by Dr. Devender Kumar when he was a research associate at the University of Calgary studying the mechanisms that the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, uses to interact with (and escape from) blood vessels on its way to colonizing tissue and spreading infection throughout its host.
In this case, the host was a mouse and the bacteria were dyed fluorescent green so that they’re much easier to observe zipping around the mouse’s bloodstream and interacting with blood vessel walls. Fascinating and creepy all at the same time.