ArticleInfection and immunity2014
Antigenic variation of TprK facilitates development of secondary syphilis.
Article in Infection and immunity, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Global Syphilis Epidemic: Turning the Tide.Sexually transmitted diseases · 2026Article
- Mechanisms, management and prevention of anorectal sexually transmitted infections.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2026Review
- Lineage-specificbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- Participants inFrontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Syphilis vaccine development: Aligning vaccine design with manufacturing requirements.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Article
- Comprehensive Overview ofCurrent protein & peptide science · 2024Review
- Resurgence of syphilis: focusing on emerging clinical strategies and preclinical models.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Review
- Longitudinal Variations in theMicrobiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Genetic Profiling of the Full-LengthMicrobiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum with an Artificially impaired TprK antigenic variation system is attenuated in the Rabbit model of syphilis.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
- Yaws recurrence in children at continued risk of infection.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- Full-length TprK of Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum in lipid nanodiscs is a monomeric porin.Enzyme and microbial technology · 2022Article
- An Updated Review of Recent Advances in Neurosyphilis.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Review
- High-throughput nanopore sequencing ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- Treponema pallidum genome sequencing from six continents reveals variability in vaccine candidate genes and dominance of Nichols clade strains in Madagascar.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Transcriptional and immunological analysis of the putative outer membrane protein and vaccine candidate TprL of Treponema pallidum.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Article
- Successful isolation of Treponema pallidum strains from patients' cryopreserved ulcer exudate using the rabbit model.PloS one · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although primary syphilis lesions heal spontaneously, the infection is chronic, with subsequent clinical stages. Healing of the primary chancre occurs as antibodies against outer membrane antigens facilitate opsonophagocytosis of the bacteria by activated macrophages. TprK is an outer membrane protein that undergoes antigenic variation at 7 variable regions, and variants are selected by immune pressure. We hypothesized that individual TprK variants escape immune clearance and seed new disseminated lesions to cause secondary syphilis. As in human syphilis, infected rabbits may develop disseminated secondary skin lesions. This study explores the nature of secondary syphilis, specifically, the contribution of antigenic variation to the development of secondary lesions. Our data from the rabbit model show that the odds of secondary lesions containing predominately TprK variant treponemes is 3.3 times higher than the odds of finding TprK variants in disseminated primary lesions (odds ratio [OR] = 3.3 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.98 to 11.0]; P = 0.055) and that 96% of TprK variant secondary lesions are likely seeded by single treponemes. Analysis of antibody responses demonstrates significantly higher antibody titers to tprK variable region sequences found in the inoculum compared to reactivity to tprK variant sequences found in newly arising secondary lesions. This suggests that tprK variants escape the initial immune response raised against the V regions expressed in the inoculum. These data further support a role for TprK in immune evasion and suggest that the ability of TprK variants to persist despite a robust immune response is instrumental in the development of later stages of syphilis.
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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.