Spirochetes Using Motility to Enter and Exit Blood Vessels

A combination of motility and invasins appears to helps Borrelia bergdorferi and Treponema pallidum to invade and exit blood vessels by passing between and through endothelial cells. This enables these spirochetes to dessiminate to other locations in the body. One tip of the spirochete attaches to the host cell and some form of invasin apparently causes the host cell to release digestive enzymes that enable the spirochete with its corkscrewing motility to penetrate the host cell membrane.