Antibody Response to Lyme Disease Spirochetes in the Context of VlsE-Mediated Immune Evasion.

ABSTRACT: Lyme disease (LD), the most prevalent tick-borne illness in North America, is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi The long-term survival of B. burgdorferi spirochetes in the mammalian host is achieved though VlsE-mediated antigenic variation. It is mathematically predicted that a highly variable surface antigen prolongs bacterial infection sufficiently to exhaust the immune response directed toward invariant surface antigens. If the prediction is correct, it is expected that the antibody response to B. burgdorferi invariant antigens will become nonprotective as B. burgdorferi infection progresses. To test this assumption, changes in the protective efficacy of the immune response to B. burgdorferi surface antigens were monitored via a superinfection model over the course of 70 days. B. burgdorfe

SUBMITTER: Rogovskyy AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5203654 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature