tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4073397588746430486.post9185982561750866969..comments2023-10-30T22:11:21.083-10:00Comments on Lyme Disease, Science, And Society: Camp Other: Syphilis and VaccinesCamp Otherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10224408965529778101noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4073397588746430486.post-42909894501602822732011-08-10T16:42:38.988-10:002011-08-10T16:42:38.988-10:00CO,
You may have covered this elsewhere, but I wo...CO,<br /><br />You may have covered this elsewhere, but I wondered if you've come across the work of James A Carroll as he has studied the proteomics of both syphilis and Lyme disease. I came across this article last night and I'm including just a few snippets:<br /><br /><a href="url" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2876534/</a><br /><br />Infect Immun. 2010 Jun;78(6):2631-43. Epub 2010 Apr 12.<br /><br />Characterization and serologic analysis of the Treponema pallidum proteome<br /><br />Continued improvement of diagnostic tests (particularly point-of-care tests) as well as the development of an effective vaccine for syphilis would aid greatly in the control of syphilis (4, 6). T. pallidum research, including the identification of antigens, has been hindered by the inability to culture the bacterium continuously in vitro, necessitating the propagation of organisms by experimental rabbit infection (28). In addition, the fragility and low protein content of the T. pallidum outer membrane have complicated the identification of surface proteins potentially useful in vaccines (5, 28).<br /><br />...Other pathogenic spirochetes also tend to have basic proteins; for example, the proteome of <b>Borrelia burgdorferi </b> has a mean pI of 8.36 and median pI of 9.03 (14, 29a), and 69% of Leptospira interrogans serovar Lai strain 56601 proteins have pIs greater than 7.0 (24, 33). A recent analysis of the T. pallidum genome indicates the presence of 46 putative lipoproteins, <b>many fewer than the 127 predicted for B. burgdorferi</b> (34).<br />...<br />They identified 106 antigens reactive with rabbit sera and 34 antigens reactive with sera from syphilis patients. This set of antigens was termed the T. pallidum immunoproteome. This approach permits identification of low-abundance T. pallidum antigens, since they may be expressed as recombinant proteins in much larger quantities. <b>Conversely, proteins that are poorly expressed in Escherichia coli or do not fold correctly may not be detected, leading to false-negative results.<br /><br />... We have thereby characterized most of the major T. pallidum proteins expressed in infected tissue and identified a set of antigens reactive at all stages of infection, which could potentially be useful for the development of improved immunodiagnostic tests </b> or for vaccines.<br /><br />(end quote)<br /><br />It was the following article that introduced me to the work of Carroll and his colleagues:<br /><br /><a href="url" rel="nofollow">http://iai.asm.org/cgi/content/short/74/7/3864</a><br /><br />Infection and Immunity, July 2006, p. 3864-3873, Vol. 74, No. 7<br /><br />Serologic Proteome Analysis of Borrelia burgdorferi Membrane-Associated Proteins <br /><br />Andrew J. Nowalk,1,2 Robert D. Gilmore Jr,3 and James A. Carroll2* <br /><br />... We utilized multiple two-dimensional gel techniques <b>combined with proteomics</b> to reveal the full humoral immune response of mice and Lyme patients to membrane-associated proteins isolated from Borrelia burgdorferi. Our studies indicated that a subset of immunogenic membrane-associated proteins (some new and some previously identified) was recognized by mice experimentally infected with Borrelia burgdorferi either by low-dose needle inoculation or by tick infestation. Moreover, the majority of these immunogenic membrane-associated proteins were recognized by sera from patients diagnosed with early-disseminated Lyme disease. These included RevA, ErpA, ErpP, DbpA, BmpA, FtsZ, ErpB, LA7, OppA I, OppA II, OppA IV, FlhF, BBA64, BBA66, and BB0323. Some immunogens (i.e., BBI36/38) were more reactive with sera from mice than Lyme patients, <b>while additional membrane proteins (i.e., FlaB, P66, LA7, and Hsp90) were recognized more strongly with sera from patients diagnosed with early-localized, early-disseminated, or late (chronic)-stage Lyme disease</b>. ...<br /><br /><b>This serologic proteome analysis enabled the identification of novel membrane-associated proteins that may serve as new diagnostic markers</b> ...RitaAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11767834432646058534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4073397588746430486.post-3919852997628096582011-01-14T15:27:15.721-10:002011-01-14T15:27:15.721-10:00Thanks! Isn't it? That whole thing with treati...Thanks! Isn't it? That whole thing with treating Syphilis by inducing fever with malarial infection is scary. To think 10% of all patients who tried it DIED. But back then, Syphilis was a death sentence - you went to the third stage and went mad, there was no antibiotic treatment for it. So people felt it was worth the risk!<br /><br />I note that there are similiar problems with Treponema pallidum and Borrelia burgdorferi - unreliablity of positive antibody response early in testing, later symptoms go on to produce more severe illness, slow dividing organism, tissue penetration, and affinity for lower oxygen environments, for a start. <br /><br />One obvious difference is that the outer surface proteins on Borrelia are much more easily detectable and there's minimal outer surface protein in T. pallidum. Vaccine development for Borrelia has moved ahead on the premise that one of its Osp's will provide a good basis for it - Osp A was in the first one, and now researchers are working with Osp C and tick saliva for vaccines.Camp Otherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10224408965529778101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4073397588746430486.post-24996107539782955892011-01-14T12:13:52.577-10:002011-01-14T12:13:52.577-10:00Interesting.Interesting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com