Activation of a vmp pseudogene in Borrella hermsii: an alternate mechanism of antigenic variation during relapsing fever
- 1 July 1994
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Molecular Microbiology
- Vol. 13 (2), 287-299
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2958.1994.tb00423.x
Abstract
The relapsing fever agent, Borrelia hermsii, undergoes multiphasic antigenic variation to evade its host's immune response. A frequently observed switch is serotype 7 to 26. Unlike silent vmp genes previously characterized, the transcriptionally silent vmp26 sequence was a pseudogene in lacking a start codon. In serotype 7 the location of the silent vmp26 sequence just downstream of vmp7 on the expression plasmid, as well as on the silent plasmid, was also unique. The demonstration of a predicted circular recombination product in serotype 7 but not serotype 21 populations indicates that the pseudogene was activated by an intramolecular recombination producing a deletion of DNA between 20-nucleotide direct repeats in vmp7 and psi vmp26.Keywords
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