ArticleGene2009
Fast, adaptive evolution at a bacterial host-resistance locus: the PFam54 gene array in Borrelia burgdorferi.
Article in Gene, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Complement inhibition by a unique cluster of immunomodulatory outer surface proteins of Borrelia recurrentis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Natural genetic variation impacts complement inhibitory activity of PFam54 orthologs of Asian Borrelia bavariensis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Comparative genomics of Borrelia lusitaniae.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- The wild, wild west of plasmids: First insights into comparative genomics of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato.PloS one · 2026Article
- Borrelia surface proteins: new horizons in Lyme disease diagnosis.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2025Review
- Article
- Unprecedented genetic variability of PFam54 paralogs among Eurasian Lyme borreliosis-causing spirochetes.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- A high fidelity approach to assembling the complex Borrelia genome.BMC genomics · 2023Article
- Phylogenomic Diversity Elucidates Mechanistic Insights into Lyme Borreliae-Host Association.mSystems · 2022Article
- Microbial adaptive evolution.Journal of industrial microbiology & biotechnology · 2022Review
- Utilizing Two Borrelia bavariensis Isolates Naturally Lacking the PFam54 Gene Array To Elucidate the Roles of PFam54-Encoded Proteins.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Host tropism determination by convergent evolution of immunological evasion in the Lyme disease system.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Lyme Disease in Humans.Current issues in molecular biology · 2021Article
- Complement Evasion by Lyme Disease Spirochetes.Trends in microbiology · 2020Review
- Evolutionary ecology of Lyme Borrelia.Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases · 2020Review
- High conservation combined with high plasticity: genomics and evolution of Borrelia bavariensis.BMC genomics · 2020Article
- New Insights Into CRASP-Mediated Complement Evasion in the Lyme Disease Enzootic Cycle.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2020Review
- The RpoS Gatekeeper inFrontiers in microbiology · 2019Article
- Primordial origin and diversification of plasmids in Lyme disease agent bacteria.BMC genomics · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Microbial pathogens have evolved sophisticated mechanisms for evasion of host innate and adaptive immunities. PFam54 is the largest paralogous gene family in the genomes of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease bacterium. One member of PFam54, the complement-regulator acquiring surface proteins 1 (BbCrasp-1), is able to abort the alternative pathway of complement activation via binding human complement-regulator factor H (FH). The gene coding for BbCRASP-1 exists in a tandem array of PFam54 genes in the B. burgdorferi genome, a result apparently of repeated gene duplications. To help elucidate the functions of the large number of PFam54 genes, we performed phylogenomic and structural analyses of the PFam54 gene array from ten B. burgdorferi genomes. Analyses based on gene tree, genome synteny, and structural models revealed rapid adaptive evolution of this array through gene duplication, gene loss, and functional diversification. Individual PFam54 genes, however, do not show high intra-population sequence polymorphisms as genes providing evasion from adaptive immunity generally do. PFam54 members able to bind human FH are not monophyletic, suggesting that human FH affinity, however strong, is an incidental rather than main function of these PFam54 proteins. The large number of PFam54 genes existing in any single B. burgdorferi genome may target different innate-immunity proteins of a single host species or the same immune protein of a variety of host species. Genetic variability of the PFam54 gene array suggests that universally present PFam54 lineages such as BBA64, BBA65, BBA66, and BBA73 may be better candidates for the development of broad-spectrum vaccines or drugs than strain-restricted lineages such as BbCRASP-1.
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