FIG. 7.

Demonstration that proteins encoded by the BBL01-BBL28 operon do not elicit an antibody response during infection in mice. To determine whether representative proteins encoded by the late operon are antigenic during infection, recombinant proteins were generated as S-Tag fusions, immunoblotted, and screened with sera collected from a mouse infected with B. burgdorferi B31MI at weeks 2 and 12 postinfection. The expression of all recombinant proteins in E. coli was confirmed by screening an immunoblot with HRP-conjugated S protein. Note that the S-Tag adds approximately 17 kDa to the mass of each recombinant protein. BBL40 and BBG33 served as positive (+) and negative (−) controls, respectively. Molecular mass standards are indicated.