The sequence-variable, single-copy tprK gene of Treponema pallidum Nichols strain UNC and Street strain 14 encodes heterogeneous TprK proteins

• Published in: Infection and immunity Vol. 68; no. 11; pp. 6482 - 6486
• Main Authors: STAMM, Lola V, BERGEN, Heather L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for Microbiology 01.11.2000
• Series: Note
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Bacterial Proteins - chemistry; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Cells, Cultured; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene Dosage; Genes, Bacterial; Genetics; Microbiology; Molecular Genomics; Molecular Sequence Data; Multigene Family; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Rabbits; Sequence Alignment; tprJ gene; tprK gene; TprK protein; Transcription, Genetic; Treponema pallidum; Treponema pallidum - classification; Treponema pallidum - genetics; Genetic variability; Spirochaetales; Virulence; Sequence alignment; Protein; Pathogenicity; Bacteria; Treponemataceae; Comparative study; Aminoacid sequence; Structural analysis; Polymorphism; Treponema pallidum
• ISSN: 0019-9567; 1098-5522
• DOI: 10.1128/IAI.68.11.6482-6486.2000

Syphilis is a chronic infection with early relapses that are hypothesized to result from the emergence of phenotypic variants of Treponema pallidum. Recent studies demonstrated that TprK, a target of protective immunity, is heterogeneous in several T. pallidum strains, but not in Nichols strain Seattle (A. Centurion-Lara, C. Godornes, C. Castro, W. C. Van Voorhis, and S. A. Lukehart, Infect. Immun. 68:824-831, 2000). Analysis of PCR-amplified tprK from Nichols strain UNC and Street strain 14 treponemes showed that TprK has seven regions of intrastrain heterogeneity resulting from amino acid substitutions, insertions, and deletions. In contrast, analysis of PCR-amplified tprJ showed little intrastrain or interstrain heterogeneity. Reverse transcriptase PCR analysis demonstrated that mRNA transcripts representing unique polymorphic TprK proteins are present during syphilitic infection. Southern hybridization confirmed that Nichols strain UNC and Street strain 14 each contain a single copy of tprK, indicating that intrastrain heterogeneity is due to the presence of multiple treponemal subpopulations which contain a variant form of tprK.