報告人: 梁芳亭，Ph.D, Tenured Associate Professor of Louisiana State University(LSU).

報告時間： 2012-9-11, 下午4:00

報告地點： 2 號樓302室

承辦單位：科技處  動科院

                                                                                                       Abstract

The Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, unlike other bacteria that are either coated with a thick peptidoglycan cell wall or covered with a lipopolysaccharide layer, protects itself by anchoring lipoproteins to its outer membrane surface. This unique surface structure confers the pathogen an extremely complicated but highly immunogenic interface to interact with the host.  B. burgdorferi induces vigorous humoral responses during infection and specific antibody to some surface lipoproteins can effectively kill the pathogen.  However, B. burgdorferi is able to cause persistent infection.  Dr. Liang uncovered a strategy B. burgdorferi uses to evade the immune system by simply down-regulating surface antigens in response to the development of immune responses.  Most notably, B. burgdorferi highly expresses outer surface protein C (OspC) during initial mammalian infection.  The induced strong anti-OspC response effectively kills spirochetes.  To cause persistent infection the pathogen shuts off the ospC gene.  His other major contributions to the field include identification of a 26-amino-acid peptide as an ELISA antigen for serological diagnosis of Lyme disease, which has been approved for human and animal use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture.