franiolek1
25.09.09, 19:58
Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2009 Sep 23. [Epub ahead of print]BBK07, a
dominant in vivo antigen of Borrelia burgdorferi, is a potential
marker for serodiagnosis of Lyme disease.Coleman AS, Pal U.
Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland, College
Park and Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine,
College Park, MD 20742, USA.
One of the recently identified Borrelia burgdorferi immunogens,
BBK07, is characterized for its expression in the spirochete
infection cycle and evaluated for its potential use as a
serodiagostic marker for Lyme disease. We show that bbk07 is
expressed at extremely low levels in vitro and in ticks, but is
dramatically induced by spirochetes once introduced into the host,
and is highly expressed throughout mammalian infection. In contrast,
the expression of bbk12, a paralog of bbk07 with 87% amino acid
identity, although expressed in vitro, remained undetectable in vivo
throughout murine infection and in ticks. BBK07 is localized in the
outer membrane and the amino-terminal domain of the antigen is
exposed on the microbial surface. A truncated BBK07 protein
representing the amino-terminal domain is able to effectively detect
antibodies to B. burgdorferi, both in experimentally infected mice
and in humans. Further characterization of the immunodominant
antigens of B. burgdorferi, such as BBK07, could contribute to the
development of novel serodiagnostic markers for detection of Lyme
disease.
PMID: 19776192 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
