Diversity of antibody responses to Borrelia burgdorferi in experimentally-infected beagle dogs

ABSTRACT: Lyme borreliosis (LB) is a common infection of domestic dogs in areas where there is enzootic transmission of the agent Borrelia burgdorferi. Immunodiagnostic assays for canine antibodies to B. burgdorferi are usually based on whole-cell preparations as substrate and, consequently, interpretation of results is confounded by antibody cross-reactivity between borrelial antigens and those of other bacterial species. To more broadly characterize the antibody responses to B. burgdorferi infection and to assess the diversity in those responses between individual dogs, we examined sera from 32 adult, colony-bred beagle dogs that were experimentally infected with B. burgdorferi through tick bites and compared those on a protein microarray with sera from uninfected dogs in their antibody reactivities to various recombinant chromosome- and plasmid-encoded B. burgdorferi proteins, including 24 of the serotype-defining OspC proteins of North America. The profiles of immunogenic proteins for the dogs were largely similar to those for humans and natural reservoir rodents. These included the decorin-binding protein DbpB, BBA36, BBA57, BBA64, fibronectin-binding protein BBK32, VlsE, FlaB and other flagellar structural proteins, Erp proteins, Bdr proteins, and all of the OspC proteins. In addition, the canine sera bound to the presumptive lipoproteins BBB14 and BB0844, which infrequently elicited antibodies in humans or rodents. Although the beagle, like most other domestic dog breeds, has a small effective population size and features extensive linkage disequilibrium, the group of animals here demonstrated diversity in antibody responses by measures of antibody levels and specificities for conserved proteins, like DbpB, and polymorphic ones, like OspC.

ORGANISM(S): Canis lupus familiaris Borreliella burgdorferi

PROVIDER: GSE50074 | GEO | 2013/08/22

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA215946

REPOSITORIES: GEO