Identification of Surface Epitopes Associated with Protection against Highly Immune-Evasive VlsE-Expressing Lyme Disease Spirochetes.

ABSTRACT: The tick-borne pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi is responsible for approximately 300,000 Lyme disease (LD) cases per year in the United States. Recent increases in the number of LD cases, in addition to the spread of the tick vector and a lack of a vaccine, highlight an urgent need for designing and developing an efficacious LD vaccine. Identification of protective epitopes that could be used to develop a second-generation (subunit) vaccine is therefore imperative. Despite the antigenicity of several lipoproteins and integral outer membrane proteins (OMPs) on the B. burgdorferi surface, the spirochetes successfully evade antibodies primarily due to the VlsE-mediated antigenic variation. VlsE is thought to sterically block antibody access to protective epitopes of B. burgdorfe

SUBMITTER: Batool M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6056884 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature