Effects of outer surface lipoproteins on the nanomechanical properties of Lyme borrelia

Abstract

The Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi causes an infection with diverse clinical outcomes, which can include arthritis as well as cardiac and neurological manifestations. B. burgdorferi expresses different outer surface lipoproteins at different stages in its infectious cycle, many of which are adhesins. Utilizing atomic force microscopy (AFM), we obtained topography images and force–distance curves of wild-type B. burgdorferi and mutant strains encoding different complements of surface lipoproteins. AFM data show that a reduced number of genome-encoded lipoproteins correlates with decreased binding probability, weakens unbinding force, and negatively affects cell elasticity.