Abstract
A novel, infectious Borrelia burgdorferi that expresses green fluorescent protein (GFP) was developed to examine the utility of this marker protein to label live bacteria during infection processes. Use of a borrelial erpAB promoter to direct gfp transcription supported previous indications that B. burgdorferi expresses erp genes during chronic mammalian infection and during acquisition by feeding ticks. Live bacteria fluoresced and were seen to be located extracellularly in infected mice and within midguts of infected ticks. These results indicate that transcriptional fusions between B. burgdorferi promoters and gfp can be useful tools to examine spirochete gene expression in vivo.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 43-47 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Microbial Pathogenesis |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2006 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:These studies were funded by US National Institutes of Health Grants R01 AI44252 and T32 AI49795. We thank Kelly Babb, Sara Bair, Jerry Bowman, Tomasz Bykowski, Anne Cooley, Sarah Kearns, Natalie Mickelsen and Sean Riley for assistance.
Keywords
- Borrelia burgdorferi
- Gene fusion
- Lyme disease
- Spirochete
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology
- Infectious Diseases