The BB0345 Hypothetical Protein of Borrelia burgdorferi Is Essential for Mammalian Infection

Abstract

During the natural enzootic life cycle of Borrelia burgdorferi (also known as Borreliella burgdorferi ), the bacteria must sense conditions within the vertebrate and arthropod and appropriately regulate expression of genes necessary to persist within these distinct environments. bb0345 of B. burgdorferi encodes a hypothetical protein of unknown function that is predicted to contain an N-terminal helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. Because HTH domains can mediate protein-DNA interactions, we hypothesized that BB0345 might represent a previously unidentified borrelial transcriptional regulator with the ability to regulate events critical for the B. burgdorferi enzootic cycle.