ArticleMolecular microbiology2006
Antigenic variation with a twist--the Borrelia story.
Article in Molecular microbiology, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mostly getting along -Borrelia burgdorferi and its manipulation of the host immune system.ImmunoHorizons · 2026Review
- Testing the capacity of humanized immune system mice to induce a protective antibody response against the Lyme disease pathogen.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Antigenic variation is caused by long plasmid segment conversion in a hard tick-borne relapsing fever Borrelia miyamotoi.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Breaking a barrier: In trans vlsE recombination and genetic manipulation of the native vlsE gene of the Lyme disease pathogen.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Analysis of the Borreliaceae Pangenome Reveals a Distinct Genomic Architecture Conserved Across Phylogenetic Scales.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Review
- Comparative genomics analysis of three conserved plasmid families in the Western Hemisphere soft tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae provides insight into variation in genome structure and antigenic variation systems.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Comparative genomics analysis of three conserved plasmid families in the Western Hemisphere soft tick-borne relapsing fever borreliae provides insight into variation in genome structure and antigenic variation systems.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Evolution of theMicrobiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Visualizing Borrelia burgdorferi Infection Using a Small-Molecule Imaging Probe.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2021Article
- Lyme Disease Pathogenesis.Current issues in molecular biology · 2021Review
- Immune Response toCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2021Article
- Antibiotic resistance and persistence-Implications for human health and treatment perspectives.EMBO reports · 2020Review
- The Borrelia burgdorferi VlsE Lipoprotein Prevents Antibody Binding to an Arthritis-Related Surface Antigen.Cell reports · 2020Article
- Chronic Lyme Disease: An Evidence-Based Definition by the ILADS Working Group.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Article
- The RpoS Gatekeeper inFrontiers in microbiology · 2019Article
- Genomic blueprint of a relapsing fever pathogen in 15th century Scandinavia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Identification of Surface Epitopes Associated with Protection against Highly Immune-Evasive VlsE-Expressing Lyme Disease Spirochetes.Infection and immunity · 2018Article
- The Emerging Role of Microbial Biofilm in Lyme Neuroborreliosis.Frontiers in neurology · 2018Review
- The Alteration of Nasopharyngeal and Oropharyngeal Microbiota in Children with MPP and Non-MPP.Genes · 2017Article
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1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
A common mechanism of immune evasion in pathogenic bacteria and protozoa is antigenic variation, in which genetic or epigenetic changes result in rapid, sequential shifts in a surface-exposed antigen. In this issue of Molecular Microbiology, Dai et al. provide the most complete description to date of the vlp/vsp antigenic variation system of the relapsing fever spirochaete, Borrelia hermsii. This elaborate, plasmid-encoded system involves an expression site that can acquire either variable large protein (vlp) or variable small protein (vsp) surface lipoprotein genes from 59 different archival copies. The archival vlp and vsp genes are arranged in clusters on at least five different plasmids. Gene conversion occurs through recombination events at upstream homology sequences (UHS) found in each gene copy, and at downstream homology sequences (DHS) found periodically among the vlp/vsp archival genes. Previous studies have shown that antigenic variation in relapsing fever Borrelia not only permits the evasion of host antibody responses, but can also result in changes in neurotropism and other pathogenic properties. The vlsE antigenic variation locus of Lyme disease spirochaetes, although similar in sequence to the relapsing fever vlp genes, has evolved a completely different antigenic variation mechanism involving segmental recombination from a contiguous array of vls silent cassettes. These two systems thus appear to represent divergence from a common precursor followed by functional convergence to create two distinct antigenic variation processes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.