Suggested role for G4 DNA in recombinational switching at the antigenic variation locus of the Lyme disease spirochete.

ABSTRACT: Antigenic variation through targeted DNA rearrangements provides a powerful diversity generating mechanism that allows a variety of pathogens to stay one step ahead of acquired immunity in their hosts. The Lyme disease spirochete encodes such a system that is required for persistent infection. The vls locus, carried on a 29 kb linear plasmid (lp28-1) in the type strain B31, carries 15 silent cassettes from which information is unidirectionally transferred into the expression locus, vlsE. Recent studies have surprisingly shown that, with the exception of the RuvAB branch migrase, no other known recombination/repair proteins appear to play a role in the recombinational switching process. In the work presented here we show that G4 DNA can be formed by sequences within the B31 vlsE locus, prom

SUBMITTER: Walia R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3585125 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature