title: Crystal structure of Lyme disease antigen outer surface protein C from Borrelia burgdorferi.
abstract: The outer surface protein C (OspC) is one of the major host-induced antigens of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease. We have solved the crystal structure of recombinant OspC to a resolution of 2.5 A. OspC, a largely alpha-helical protein, is a dimer with a characteristic central four-helical bundle formed by association of the two longest helices from each subunit. OspC is very different from OspA and similar to the extracellular domain of the bacterial aspartate receptor and the variant surface glycoprotein from Trypanosoma brucei. Most of the surface-exposed residues of OspC are highly variable among different OspC isolates. The membrane proximal halves of the two long alpha-helices are the only conserved regions that are solvent accessible. As vaccination with recombinant OspC has been shown to elicit a protective immune response in mice, these regions are candidates for peptide-based vaccines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2128, USA.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eicken
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Klabunde
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Owens
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Pikas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Höök
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Sacchettini
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D015748:Borrelia burgdorferi Group / Q000737:chemistry*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D019281:Dimerization; D004583:Electrons; D008193:Lyme Disease / Q000276:immunology*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012486:Salmonella typhimurium / Q000378:metabolism; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014346:Trypanosoma brucei brucei / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins; C079616:OspC protein; D010455:Peptides; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D001224:Aspartic Acid