Jonathan T Lee, Zhenghui Li, Lorna D Nunez, Daniel Katzel, B Scott Perrin, Varun Raghuraman, Urvi Rajyaguru, Katrina E Llamera, Lubomira Andrew, Annaliesa S Anderson, Joppe W Hovius, Paul A Liberator, Raphael Simon, Li Hao
Lyme disease (LD), caused by spirochete bacteria of the genus Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato , remains the most common vector-borne disease in the northern hemisphere. Borrelia outer surface protein A (OspA) is an integral surface protein expressed during the tick cycle, and a validated vaccine target. There are at least 20 recognized Borrelia genospecies, that vary in OspA serotype. This study presents a new in silico sequence-based method for OspA typing using next-generation sequence data. Using a compiled database of over 400 Borrelia genomes encompassing the 4 most common disease-causing genospecies, we characterized OspA diversity in a manner that can accommodate existing and new OspA types and then defined boundaries for classification and assignment of OspA types based on the sequence similarity...
May 2024: Microbial Genomics