Lyme Disease and Syphillis

This article discusses the similarities between the two bacteria that cause Lyme disease and Syphilis. The main similarity between the two bacteria is that they both use a tail in order to move within their respective environments. The peculiar thing about the tails and what makes this similarity so interesting is that the tails of teach bacteria are actually located inside their bodies. The similarities don’t stop there though, both bacteria are spirochetes, meaning they have a corkscrew-like configuration, they are also both exceptionally active in their environments for bacteria. The tails of these bacteria rotate causing torque and movement of the bacteria. Overall this embedded tail design allow the bacteria to penetrate walls and environments that non-spirochetes cannot penetrate. This provides an evolutionary advantage, some specific examples of this advantage is the ability of the Lyme disease bacteria to penetrate the blood brain barrier to infect the CNS and the ability of Syphilis to penetrate the placenta and infect an unborn child.