Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland and Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, College Park, MD 20742, United States.
Vaccine. 2011 Nov 8;29(48):9012-9. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.09.035. Epub 2011 Sep 21.
The surface-exposed antigens of Borrelia burgdorferi represent important targets for induction of protective host immune responses. BBA52 is preferentially expressed by B. burgdorferi in the feeding tick, and a targeted deletion of bba52 interferes with vector-host transitions in vivo. In this study, we demonstrate that BBA52 is an outer membrane surface-exposed protein and that disulfide bridges take part in the homo-oligomeric assembly of native protein. BBA52 antibodies lack detectable borreliacidal activities in vitro. However, active immunization studies demonstrated that BBA52 vaccinated mice were significantly less susceptible to subsequent tick-borne challenge infection. Similarly, passive transfer of BBA52 antibodies in ticks completely blocked B. burgdorferi transmission from feeding ticks to naïve mice. Taken together, these studies highlight the role of BBA52 in spirochete dissemination from ticks to mice and demonstrate the potential of BBA52 antibody-mediated strategy to complement the ongoing efforts to develop vaccines for blocking the transmission of B. burgdorferi.
伯氏疏螺旋体表面暴露的抗原代表诱导保护性宿主免疫反应的重要靶标。BBA52 在摄食蜱中优先由伯氏疏螺旋体表达，靶向缺失 bba52 会干扰体内的媒介-宿主转变。在这项研究中，我们证明了 BBA52 是一种外膜表面暴露的蛋白质，并且二硫键参与了天然蛋白质的同型寡聚组装。BBA52 抗体在体外缺乏可检测的杀螺活力。然而，主动免疫研究表明，BBA52 疫苗接种的小鼠对随后的蜱传感染挑战的敏感性显著降低。同样，在蜱中被动转移 BBA52 抗体可完全阻止伯氏疏螺旋体从摄食蜱向幼稚小鼠的传播。综上所述，这些研究强调了 BBA52 在螺旋体从蜱向小鼠传播中的作用，并证明了 BBA52 抗体介导的策略有潜力补充正在进行的开发疫苗以阻断伯氏疏螺旋体传播的努力。
