{"doi":"10.1101/2022.05.24.493343","title":"CspZ FH-binding sites as epitopes promote antibody-mediated Lyme borreliae clearance","abstract":"ABSTRACT Transmitted by ticks, the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato ( Bb sl) is the causative agent of Lyme disease (LD), the most common vector-borne disease in the Northern hemisphere. No effective vaccines are currently available. Bb sl produces the CspZ protein that binds to the complement inhibitor, Factor H (FH), promoting evasion of the host complement system. We previously showed that while vaccination with CspZ did not protect mice from Bb infection, mice can be protected after immunization with CspZ-Y207A/Y211A (CspZ-YA), a CspZ mutant protein without FH-binding activity. To further study the mechanism of this protection, herein we evaluated both poly-and monoclonal antibodies recognizing CspZ FH-binding or non-FH-binding sites. We found that the anti-CspZ antibodies that recognize the FH-binding sites (i.e., block FH-binding activity) more efficiently eliminate Bb sl in vitro than those that bind to the non-FH-binding sites, and passive inoculation with anti-FH binding site antibodies eradicated Bb sl in vivo . Antibodies against non-FH-binding sites did not have the same effect. These results emphasize the importance of CspZ FH-binding sites in triggering a protective antibody response against Bb sl in future LD vaccines.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":308839,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9625,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1003628,"name":"Ashley L. Marcinkiewicz","orcid":"0000-0003-1417-5699","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":244719,"name":"Tristan A. Nowak","orcid":"0000-0002-4113-0309","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":343511,"name":"Rakhi Kundu","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":342528,"name":"Zhuyun Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-6672-1383","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231474,"name":"Ulrich Strych","orcid":"0000-0001-9455-7683","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231472,"name":"María Elena Bottazzi","orcid":"0000-0002-8429-0476","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":277588,"name":"Wen‐Hsiang Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-0542-1598","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":244717,"name":"Yi‐Pin Lin","orcid":"0000-0002-5240-2031","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":479617,"name":"Yilin Chen","orcid":"0009-0000-9552-5990","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":60,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:07.132912Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}