Genetic mechanisms of bacterial antigenic variation

Genetic mechanisms of bacterial antigenic variation.

The ability of an organism to respond and adapt to the environment is the keystone to its survival as a species. Pathogenic microorganisms have evolved a variety of mechanisms to deal with the rigors of the host immune response. These mechanisms, depending on the life cycle of the pathogen, include mimicry of host antigens, survival within professional phagocytes, and antigenic variation of maj...

Antigenic variation: molecular and genetic mechanisms of relapsing disease.

Mechanisms mediating antigenic variation in Trypanosoma brucei.

Antigenic variation in Trypanosoma brucei is a highly sophisticated survival strategy involving switching between the transcription of one of an estimated thousand variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) genes. Switching involves either transcriptional control, resulting in switching between different VSG expression sites; or DNA rearrangement events slotting previously inactive VSG genes into an ac...

Bacterial antigenic variation, host immune response, and pathogen-host coevolution.

Many bacterial pathogens are exquisitely adapted to host parasitization. Their niche is primarily determined by the biochemical milieu of the host. As such, pathogens are selected to exhibit environmentally responsive and adaptive molecular traits which allow adherence, entrance, and replication within the host (7, 26). One major set of selective forces which operates to shape the phenotype of ...

Genetic basis of Neisseria gonorrhoeae lipooligosaccharide antigenic variation.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae lipooligosaccharide (LOS) undergoes antigenic variation at a high rate, and this variation can be monitored by changes in a strain's ability to bind LOS-specific monoclonal antibodies. We report here the cloning and identification of a gene, lsi-2, that can mediate this variation. The DNA sequence of lsi-2 has been determined for N. gonorrhoeae 1291, a strain that expresse...