A recombinant vaccine for Lyme disease.

We are studying processes leading to protective immunity in murine Lyme borreliosis in order to derive a suitable vaccine candidate for clinical use. Our work focuses on the role of the two main outer surface lipoproteins A and B (OspA and OspB) of the causative agent of Lyme disease, the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, as targets for its specific elimination. We could show that native and recombinant LipOspA induce monospecific immune sera able to passively transfer protection in SCID mice against experimental and tick-borne infection and disease. Recent results for phase I and II safety and efficacy trails are promising in demonstrating that the recombinant LipOspA vaccine candidate is safe and immunogenic and elicits borreliacidal antibodies.