Antigenic variation of Anaplasma marginale by expression of MSP2 mosaics.

ABSTRACT: Anaplasma marginale is a tick-borne pathogen, one of several closely related ehrlichial organisms that cause disease in animals and humans. These Ehrlichia species have complex life cycles that require, in addition to replication and development within the tick vector, evasion of the immune system in order to persist in the mammalian reservoir host. This complexity requires efficient use of the small ehrlichial genome. A. marginale and related ehrlichiae express immunoprotective, variable outer membrane proteins that have similar structures and are encoded by polymorphic multigene families. We show here that the major outer membrane protein of A. marginale, MSP2, is encoded on a polycistronic mRNA. The genomic expression site for this mRNA is polymorphic and encodes numerous amino acid seq

SUBMITTER: Barbet AF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC97690 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature