What Is an L-Form, Round Body, Cyst, and Spheroplast Persister?
They are all one thing. They can become this form under great stress–like antibiotic exposure. Eventually, in a month, year, or decade, they open and the active jerking corkscrew form takes off.
These round cysts can also allow Lyme to evade your immune system. These are one of three forms that basic treatments have zero ability to defeat, leading to failure to cure Lyme in a month. It is possible some may feel better on a week or month of antibiotics. Is that stunning of bacteria? The stopping of bacterial chemicals released in your body?
Rudenko reports:
- The survival of spirochetes from the Borrelia burgdorferi… in a hostile environment is achieved in the presence of changes in temperature, salts, nutrient content, acidity fluctuation, multiple host or vector dependent factors, and leads to the formation of dormant .[cells].
- Genes react to antibiotic pressure creating persister forms.
- “Dormancy” and “persistence” do share some similarities, e.g. both represent cells with low metabolic activity that can exist for a long time, and without replication.
- Persisters are elusive, present in low numbers, differ among themselves, are multi-drug-tolerant cells that can change with the environment. They are not the exception but something almost all bacteria do.
- Persisters can adopt varying sizes and shapes, changing from well-known forms to altered unusual ones.
One persistence tool is biofilm which remarkably changes the response of Borrelia [Lyme] to hostile environments. Persisters remain viable despite aggressive antibiotic challenge and are able to reversibly convert into motile forms in a favorable growth environment. Persisters are present in significant numbers in biofilms, which has led to the explanation of biofilm tolerance to antibiotics. Considering that biofilms are associated with numerous chronic diseases through their resilient presence in the human body, it is not surprising that interest in persisting cells has consequently accelerated.
Certain diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria (e.g. tuberculosis, syphilis or leprosy) are commonly chronic in nature and often recur despite antibiotic treatment.
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Rudenko N, Golovchenko M, Kybicova K, Vancova M. Metamorphoses of Lyme disease spirochetes: phenomenon of Borrelia persisters. Parasit Vectors. 2019 May 16;12(1):237. doi: 10.1186/s13071-019-3495-7. PMID: 31097026; PMCID: PMC6521364.