Open AccessLyme Disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, and Lipid Immunogens
Author(s) -
Dávid Szamosvári,
Munhyung Bae,
Sunghee Bang,
Betsabeh Khoramian Tusi,
Chelsi D. Cassilly,
Sung-Moo Park,
Daniel B. Graham,
Ramnik J. Xavier,
Jon Clardy
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of the american chemical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.115
H-Index - 612
eISSN - 1520-5126
pISSN - 0002-7863
DOI - 10.1021/jacs.1c12202
Subject(s) - borrelia burgdorferi , immune system , lyme disease , borrelia , spirochaetaceae , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , pathogen , virology , immunology , antibody , biology
The human immune system detects potentially pathogenic microbes with receptors that respond to microbial metabolites. While the overall immune signaling pathway is known in considerable detail, the initial molecular signals, the microbially produced immunogens, for important diseases like Lyme disease (LD) are often not well-defined. The immunogens for LD are produced by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi , and a galactoglycerolipid ( 1 ) has been identified as a key trigger for the inflammatory immune response that characterizes LD. This report corrects the original structural assignment of 1 to 3 , a change of an α-galactopyranose to an α-galactofuranose headgroup. The seemingly small change has important implications for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of LD.