Most Lyme disease infections occur when a tick transfers the pathogen from a reservoir host —like an infected animal — to a human. Researchers from the University of Texas in San Antonio sought to find a way to reduce the burden of infection in these reservoir hosts, which would eventually lessen the burden of infection in the human population.
Researchers found that statins, typically prescribed to lower cholesterol, reduced the presence of the infection throughout the tissues of mice with exception to joint tissue.
The next step for researchers at UTSA is to better understand how the cholesterol medication inhibits the dissemination of the pathogen to other tissues and to subsequently determine how statins can be modified hinder the survival of Lyme disease.
“First we want to determine how statins can be used to stop the growth of the pathogen and how we can exploit these findings to our benefit,” said Janakiram Seshu, PhD, associate professor of biology at UTSA. “Our hope is that if we reduce the number of viable organisms in infected reservoir hosts then we can block the transmission to a point that the disease doesn’t affect humans significantly in many areas of the U.S.”
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