Outer membrane protein sequence variation in lambs experimentally infected with Anaplasma phagocytophilum.

ABSTRACT: Anaplasma phagocytophilum has long been known to cause tick-borne fever in ruminants and has been identified more recently as the causative agent of the emerging disease human granulocytic anaplasmosis. The related organism Anaplasma marginale uses gene conversion of the expression site for two major outer membrane proteins (OMPs) to generate extensive sequence and antigenic variation in these OMPs. This is thought to present a continuously varying repertoire of epitopes to the mammalian host and allow disease persistence. Recent genomic and structural data on human strains of A. phagocytophilum, together with animal studies in model systems, have implicated an orthologous OMP of A. phagocytophilum in a similar mechanism of variation. However, to date there has been little investigation of

SUBMITTER: Granquist EG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2223638 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature