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Synthesis of Autoinducer 2 by the Lyme Disease Spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi

Kelly Babb,¹ Kate von Lackum,¹ Rachel L. Wattier,^1,2, Sean P. Riley,¹ and Brian Stevenson^1*

Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536,¹ Agricultural Biotechnology Program, College of Agriculture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40546²

Received 30 November 2004/ Accepted 27 January 2005

Defining the metabolic capabilities and regulatory mechanisms controlling gene expression is a valuable step in understanding the pathogenic properties of infectious agents such as Borrelia burgdorferi. The present studies demonstrated that B. burgdorferi encodes functional Pfs and LuxS enzymes for the breakdown of toxic products of methylation reactions. Consistent with those observations, B. burgdorferi was shown to synthesize the end product 4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentanedione (DPD) during laboratory cultivation. DPD undergoes spontaneous rearrangements to produce a class of pheromones collectively named autoinducer 2 (AI-2). Addition of in vitro-synthesized DPD to cultured B. burgdorferi resulted in differential expression of a distinct subset of proteins, including the outer surface lipoprotein VlsE. Although many bacteria can utilize the other LuxS product, homocysteine, for regeneration of methionine, B. burgdorferi was found to lack such ability. It is hypothesized that B. burgdorferi produces LuxS for the express purpose of synthesizing DPD and utilizes a form of that molecule as an AI-2 pheromone to control gene expression.

Current address: Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, CT 06510.

This article has been cited by other articles:

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