Yi-Pin Lin
Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
Title: Glycosaminoglycan binding adhesins of Lyme disease spirochetes contributes to tissue colonization and disease manifestations
Biography
Biography: Yi-Pin Lin
Abstract
Borrelia burgdorferi is a bacterial spirochete that causes Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in U.S. B. burgdorferi can infect the skin at the site of the tick bite, and subsequently colonize the heart, joints, or brain. The establishment of B. burgdorferi infection at diverse sites may be partly dictated by the attachment of spirochetes to target tissues. Indeed, B. burgdorferi encodes several adhesins that recognize components of the extracellular matrix such as proteoglycans and is often localized in connective tissue during infection. Proteoglycans consist of a core protein and one or more covalently linked long repeating disaccharides glycosaminoglycan (GAG). Upon adaptation to the mammalian host, B. burgdorferi produces surface-localized GAG-binding proteins as known as adhesins. The GAG-binding activity of these adhesins was speculated to mediate the tissues colonization and disease. Recently, spirochetes deficient in specific GAG-binding adhesins, such as DbpA or BBK32, have been shown to display reduced infectivity in a murine model, indicating a critical role for GAG-binding during mammalian infection. We further demonstrated that the GAG-binding activity of DbpA promotes colonization and disease manifestation at all of the tissues while this activity of BBK32 specifically promotes joint colonization. Therefore, GAG-binding activities may play roles in tissue colonization and the clinical manifestations of Lyme disease.