Maximum antigen diversification in a lyme bacterial population and evolutionary strategies to overcome pathogen diversity.

ABSTRACT: Natural populations of pathogens and their hosts are engaged in an arms race in which the pathogens diversify to escape host immunity while the hosts evolve novel immunity. This co-evolutionary process poses a fundamental challenge to the development of broadly effective vaccines and diagnostics against a diversifying pathogen. Based on surveys of natural allele frequencies and experimental immunization of mice, we show high antigenic specificities of natural variants of the outer surface protein C (OspC), a dominant antigen of a Lyme Disease-causing bacterium (Borrelia burgdorferi). To overcome the challenge of OspC antigenic diversity to clinical development of preventive measures, we implemented a number of evolution-informed strategies to broaden OspC antigenic reactivity. In particula

SUBMITTER: Di L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8376116 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature