TY  - JOUR
A1  - Röttgerding, Florian
A1  - Kraiczy, Peter
T1  - Immune evasion strategies of relapsing fever spirochetes
T2  - Frontiers in immunology
N2  - Relapsing fever (RF) is claimed a neglected arthropod-borne disease caused by a number of diverse human pathogenic Borrelia (B.) species. These RF borreliae are separated into the groups of tick-transmitted species including B. duttonii, B. hermsii, B. parkeri, B. turicatae, B. hispanica, B. persica, B. caucasica, and B. myiamotoi, and the louse-borne Borrelia species B. recurrentis. As typical blood-borne pathogens achieving high cell concentrations in human blood, RF borreliae (RFB) must outwit innate immunity, in particular complement as the first line of defense. One prominent strategy developed by RFB to evade innate immunity involves inactivation of complement by recruiting distinct complement regulatory proteins, e.g., C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-INH), C4b-binding protein (C4BP), factor H (FH), FH-like protein-1 (FHL-1), and factor H-related proteins FHR-1 and FHR-2, or binding of individual complement components and plasminogen, respectively. A number of multi-functional, complement and plasminogen-binding molecules from distinct Borrelia species have previously been identified and characterized, exhibiting considerable heterogeneity in their sequences, structures, gene localization, and their capacity to bind host-derived proteins. In addition, RFB possess a unique system of antigenic variation, allowing them to change the composition of surface-exposed variable major proteins, thus evading the acquired immune response of the human host. This review focuses on the current knowledge of the immune evasion strategies by RFB and highlights the role of complement-interfering and infection-associated molecules for the pathogenesis of RFB.
KW  - spirochetes
KW  - Borrelia
KW  - relapsing fever
KW  - immune evasion
KW  - complement
KW  - antigenic variation
KW  - innate immunity
KW  - adaptive immunity
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/55397
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-553972
SN  - 1664-3224
VL  - 11
IS  - 1560
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -