Troy Bankhead, PhD
Assistant Professor
The primary research focus of my lab is the study of antigenic variation
in the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. This
tick-borne pathogen causes persistent infections that can lead to chronic
neurologic, cardiovascular, and arthralgic manifestations in both humans and
animals. There is currently no available vaccine for preventing infection
in humans. B. burgdorferi can successfully evade the
host immune response due to a survival technique involving gene conversion
events at the
vls locus that lead to changes in the amino acid sequence of the VlsE
surface lipoprotein. The vls
repertoire associated with mammalian immunoglobulin genes. Interestingly,
antigenic variation in B. burgdorferi only occurs during animal
infections, and not when the organism is grown in culture. Thus, it appears
that mammalian host factor(s) are required to turn on the antigenic
switching process. Antigenic variation has important implications in the
development of vaccines against B. burgdorferi
and other Borrelia species. A recent breakthrough involving the
generation of vls
knockout clone of B. Burgdorferi has now made it possible for us to
experimentally examine the mechanistic details of vls
recombination. Moreover, new insights into the workings of vlsE
recombination have provided us clues to putative genetic elements that may
play mechanistic roles in this process. Our long-term goal is to identify
the Borrelia protein(s) responsible for antigenic variation of
vlsE, as well as the mammalian host factor(s) involved in turning on
vlsE switching.
Other research interests include identifying virulence factors of B.
burgdorferi involved in pathogenesis, as well as factors involved in
spirochete adaptation to both the host animal and tick vector.
