Linear B Cell Epitopes Derived from the Multifunctional Surface Lipoprotein BBK32 as Targets for the Serodiagnosis of Lyme Disease

Abstract

Lyme disease is an infectious disease that has the potential to cause significant morbidity with damage to nervous and musculoskeletal systems if left untreated. Appropriate antibiotic treatment during early infection prevents disease progression. Unfortunately, currently available diagnostics are suboptimal in the detection of early disease. The inability to confirm Borrelia infection using laboratory methods during early disease is, in part, responsible for much of the controversy surrounding Lyme disease today. As a result, there has been significant investment in the identification of new antigen targets to generate diagnostic assays that are more sensitive for the detection of early infection. The importance of our research is that in our evaluation of BBK32, an antigen that was previously identified as a promising target for use in serodiagnostics, we found a high degree of cross-reactivity that could compromise the specificity of assays that utilize this antigen, leading to false-positive diagnoses.