Antigenic variation in the Lyme spirochete: detailed functional assessment of recombinational switching at vlsE in the JD1 strain of Borrelia burgdorferi.

Author:

Verhey, TB, and Castellanos, M

Array:

Publication type:

Journal Article

Publication date:

2019-03

Journal/Series title:

Mol Microbiol.

URL:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30580501

Abstract:

We show that antigenic variation in B31 and JD1 is highly similar, despite the lack of 17 bp direct repeats in JD1, a somewhat different arrangement of the silent cassettes, divergent inverted repeat sequences, and general divergence in the vls sequences. We also present data that strongly suggests that dimerization is required for in vivo functionality of VlsE.