Comparative genomics analysis of three conserved plasmid families in the Western Hemisphere soft tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae provides insight into variation in genome structure and antigenic variation systems.

ABSTRACT: Borrelia spirochetes, causative agents of Lyme disease and relapsing fever (RF), have uniquely complex genomes, consisting of a linear chromosome and both circular and linear plasmids. The plasmids harbor genes important for the vector-host life cycle of these tick-borne bacteria. The role of plasmids from Lyme disease causing spirochetes is more refined compared to RF Borrelia because of limited plasmid-resolved genome assemblies for the latter. We recently addressed this limitation and found that three linear plasmid families (F6, F27, and F28) were syntenic across all the RF Borrelia species that we examined. Given this conservation, we further investigated the three plasmid families. The F6 family, also known as the megaplasmid, contained regions of repetitive DNA.

SUBMITTER: Kneubehl AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10580987 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature