Interplay between vertebrate adaptive immunity and bacterial infectivity genes: Bank vole MHC versus Borrelia afzelii OspC.

Publisher: Blackwell Scientific Publications Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 9214478 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1365-294X (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 09621083 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Mol Ecol Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: Oxford, UK : Blackwell Scientific Publications, c1992-

Arvicolinae*/genetics ; Arvicolinae*/immunology ; Arvicolinae*/microbiology ; Borrelia burgdorferi Group*/genetics ; Borrelia burgdorferi Group*/immunology ; Borrelia burgdorferi Group*/pathogenicity ; Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins*/genetics ; Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins*/immunology ; Major Histocompatibility Complex*/genetics ; Lyme Disease*/immunology ; Lyme Disease*/genetics ; Lyme Disease*/microbiology ; Adaptive Immunity*/genetics; Animals ; Alleles ; Immunoglobulin G/immunology ; Selection, Genetic/genetics ; Antibodies, Bacterial/blood ; Antibodies, Bacterial/immunology ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; Antigens, Bacterial

Coevolution of parasites with their hosts may lead to balancing selection on genes involved in determining the specificity of host-parasite interactions, but examples of such specific interactions in wild vertebrates are scarce. Here, we investigated whether the polymorphic outer surface protein C (OspC), used by the Lyme disease agent, Borrelia afzelii, to manipulate vertebrate host innate immunity, interacts with polymorphic major histocompatibility genes (MHC), while concurrently eliciting a strong antibody response, in one of its main hosts in Europe, the bank vole. We found signals of balancing selection acting on OspC, resulting in little differentiation in OspC variant frequencies between years. Neither MHC alleles nor their inferred functional groupings (supertypes) significantly predicted the specificity of infection with strains carrying different OspC variants. However, we found that MHC alleles, but not supertypes, significantly predicted the level of IgG antibodies against two common OspC variants among seropositive individuals. Our results thus indicate that MHC alleles differ in their ability to induce antibody responses against specific OspC variants, which may contribute to selection of OspC polymorphism by the vole immune system.
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2019/34/A/NZ8/00231 Narodowe Centrum Nauki

Keywords: bacteria; host parasite interactions; mammals; population genetics—empirical

0 (Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins)
0 (OspC protein)
0 (Immunoglobulin G)
0 (Antibodies, Bacterial)
0 (Antigens, Bacterial)

Date Created: 20240924 Date Completed: 20241029 Latest Revision: 20241029

20241031

10.1111/mec.17534

39314079