News Health & Medicine How to fight Lyme may lie in the biology of its disease-causing bacteria Its unusual cell wall may hold clues for understanding and treating the tick-borne illness New insights into the molecular makeup of Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, a tangle pictured here in its signature spiral shape, could lead to advances in understanding and treating Lyme disease. Callista Images/Connect Images/Getty Images Plus By Leah Rosenbaum 24 seconds ago Not all cell walls are created equal. Take the peculiar makeup of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium’s cell wall. It might play a role in lingering symptoms of Lyme disease — the most common tick-borne infection in the United States. That makeup might also be key to developing new treatments for the disease, researchers report in two studies published April 23 in Science Translational Medicine. Somewhere between 90,000 and nearly 500,000 people are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year in the United States. About 15 percent of those people continue to experience symptoms including fatigue, body aches and memory problems even after the acute phase of the disease is treated — a condition called Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, or PTLDS. However scientists aren’t sure what causes the lingering symptoms of PTLDS once antibiotics have killed the living bacteria inside the body. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.