Crystal Structure of Lyme Disease Variable Surface Antigen VlsE of Borrelia burgdorferi

• DOI: 10.1074/jbc.m201547200
• Publication Date: 2002-07-26T15:16:37Z
• Authors: Christoph Eicken; Vivek Sharma; Thomas Klabunde; Matthew B. Lawrenz; John M. Hardham; Steven J. Norris; James C. Sacchettini
• Keywords: Antigenic variation; Gene conversion

VlsE is an outer surface lipoprotein of<i>Borrelia burgdorferi</i> that undergoes antigenic variation through elaborate gene conversion mechanism and thought to play a major role in the immune response Lyme disease borellia. The crystal structure of recombinant variant protein VlsE1 at 2.3-Å resolution reveals six variable regions form loop structures constitute most membrane distal VlsE, covering predominantly α-helical, invariant protein. localization amino acid segments appears protect conserved from interaction with antibodies hence may contribute evasion.