Journal article
“Nothing is permanent but change” -- Antigenic variation in persistent bacterial pathogens
Cellular microbiology, Vol.11(12), pp.1697-1705
12/2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/108031
PMCID: PMC3354987
PMID: 19709057
Abstract
Pathogens persist in immunocompetent mammalian hosts using various strategies, including evasion of immune effectors by antigenic variation. Among highly antigenically variant bacteria, gene conversion is used to generate novel expressed variants from otherwise silent donor sequences. Recombination using oligonucleotide segments from multiple donors is a combinatorial mechanism that tremendously expands the variant repertoire, allowing thousands of variants to be generated from a relatively small donor pool. Three bacterial pathogens, each encoded by a small genome (<1.2Mb), illustrate this variant generating capacity and its role in persistent infection.
Borrelia burgdorferi
VlsE diversity is encoded and expressed on a linear plasmid required for persistence and recent experiments have demonstrated that VlsE recombination is necessary for persistence in the immunocompetent host. In contrast, both
Treponema pallidum
TprK and
Anaplasma marginale
Msp2 expression sites and donors are chromosomally encoded. Both
T. pallidum
and
A. marginale
generate antigenic variants
in vivo
in individual hosts and studies at the population level reveal marked strain diversity in the variant repertoire that may underlie pathogen strain structure and the capacity for re-infection and heterologous strain superinfection. Here, we review gene conversion in bacterial antigenic variation and discuss the short- and long-term selective pressures that shape the variant repertoire.
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Details
- Title
- “Nothing is permanent but change” -- Antigenic variation in persistent bacterial pathogens
- Creators
- Guy H Palmer - Department of Microbiology and Pathology and School for Global Animal Health, Washington State UniversityTroy Bankhead - Department of Microbiology and Pathology and School for Global Animal Health, Washington State UniversitySheila A Lukehart - Departments of Medicine and Global Health, University of Washington School of Medicine
- Publication Details
- Cellular microbiology, Vol.11(12), pp.1697-1705
- Academic Unit
- Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, Department of; Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health
- Identifiers
- 99900547288401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article