Comparison of spleen transcriptomes of two wild rodent species reveals differences in the immune response against Borrelia afzelii
Different host species often differ considerably in susceptibility to a given pathogen, but the causes of such differences are rarely known. The natural hosts of the tick-transmitted bacterium Borrelia afzelii, which is one of causative agents of Lyme borreliosis in humans, include a variety of small mammals like voles and mice. Previous studies have shown that B. afzelii-infected bank voles (Myod