Antigenicity and immunogenicity of different morphological forms of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato spirochetes

Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is a species complex of pleomorphic spirochetes, including species that cause Lyme disease (LD) in humans. In addition to classic spiral forms, these bacteria are capable of creating morphological forms referred to as round bodies and aggregates. The subject of discus...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2024-02, Vol.14 (1), p.4014-4014, Article 4014
Main Authors: Sloupenska, Kristyna, Koubkova, Barbora, Horak, Pavel, Dolezilkova, Jana, Hutyrova, Beata, Racansky, Mojmir, Miklusova, Martina, Mares, Jan, Raska, Milan, Krupka, Michal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/250
631/326
631/45
Aggregates
Antigenicity
Autoantigens
Borrelia burgdorferi
Humanities and Social Sciences
Immune response
Immunogenicity
Lyme disease
Lymphocytes T
Morphology
multidisciplinary
Myositis
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Spirochetes
Statistical analysis
Vaccination
Vector-borne diseases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is a species complex of pleomorphic spirochetes, including species that cause Lyme disease (LD) in humans. In addition to classic spiral forms, these bacteria are capable of creating morphological forms referred to as round bodies and aggregates. The subject of discussion is their possible contribution to the persistence of infection or post-infection symptoms in LD. This study investigates the immunological properties of these forms by monitoring reactivity with early (n = 30) and late stage (n = 30) LD patient sera and evaluating the immune response induced by vaccination of mice. In patient sera, we found a quantitative difference in reactivity with individual morphotypes, when aggregates were recognized most intensively, but the difference was statistically significant in only half of the tested strains. In post-vaccination mouse sera, we observed a statistically significant higher reactivity with antigens p83 and p25 (OspC) in mice vaccinated with aggregates compared to mice vaccinated with spiral forms. The importance of the particulate nature of the antigen for the induction of a Th1-directed response has also been demonstrated. In any of morphological forms, the possibility of inducing antibodies cross-reacting with human nuclear and myositis specific/associated autoantigens was not confirmed by vaccination of mice.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-024-54505-y