Antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi complement regulator-acquiring surface protein 2 (CspZ) as a serological marker of human Lyme disease

Institute of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, University Hospital of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Department of Immunology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; Department of Pathology, University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: brian.stevenson{at}uky.edu.

	Abstract

Serological diagnosis of Lyme disease may be complicated by antigenic differences between infecting organisms and those used as test references. Accordingly, it would be helpful to include antigens whose sequences are well conserved by a broad range of Lyme disease spirochetes. In the present study, line blot analyses were performed using recombinant complement regulator-acquiring surface protein 2 (BbCRASP-2) from B. burgdorferi sensu stricto strain B31, and serum samples from human Lyme disease patients from throughout the United States and Germany. The results indicated that a large proportion of the patients had produced antibodies recognizing recombinant BbCRASP-2. In addition, Lyme disease spirochetes isolated from across North American and Europe were found to contain genes encoding proteins with high degrees similarity to the B. burgdorferi type strain B31 BbCRASP-2, consistent with the high percentage of serologically positive patients. These data indicate that BbCRASP-2 may be valuable for use in a widely effective serological assay.