%0 Journal Article
%T Identification and functional characterisation of Complement Regulator Acquiring Surface Protein-1 of serum resistant Borrelia garinii OspA serotype 4
%A Nathalie D van Burgel
%A Peter Kraiczy
%A Tim J Schuijt
%A Peter F Zipfel
%A Alje P van Dam
%J BMC Microbiology
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2180-10-43
%X We demonstrate that B. garinii OspA serotype 4 (ST4) PBi resist complement-mediated killing by binding of FHL-1. To identify the primary ligands of FHL-1 four CspA orthologs from B. garinii ST4 PBi were cloned and tested for binding to human CFH and FHL-1. Orthologs BGA66 and BGA71 were found to be able to bind both complement regulators but with different intensities. In addition, all CspA orthologs were tested for binding to mammalian and avian CFH. Distinct orthologs were able to bind to CFH of different animal origins.B. garinii ST4 PBi is able to evade complement killing and it can bind FHL-1 to membrane expressed proteins. Recombinant proteins BGA66 can bind FHL-1 and human CFH, while BGA71 can bind only FHL-1. All recombinant CspA orthologs from B. garinii ST4 PBi can bind CFH from different animal origins. This partly explains the wide variety of animals that can be infected by B. garinii.Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (sl), the etiologic agent of Lyme borreliosis, is a genetically diverse species. The different genospecies of B. burgdorferi sl appear to be associated with different manifestations of the disease [1,2]. B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (ss) is more common in North America but also found in Eurasia and is associated with arthritis, while B. garinii and B. afzelii are only present in Eurasia and are more commonly associated with Lyme neuroborreliosis and cutaneous manifestations, respectively. Specifically B. garinii OspA serotype 4 (ST4) strains, a genetically homogenous group, are frequently observed as a causative agent of neuroborreliosis in adults in Europe [3-6]. Recently it has also been proposed, though not yet generally accepted, to delineate the B. garinii ST4 strains as a separate species, B. bavariensis, due to large differences compared to B. garinii non-ST4 in multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) on several housekeeping genes [7].The different human pathogenic genospecies are associated with certain human serum resistance profiles; th
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2180/10/43