FIG 5.

Antigenicity of conserved epitopes against host sera. The antigenicity of five IRs (x-axis) was quantified with ELISA (see Materials and Methods). Bovine serum albumin (BSA) was used as the negative control and the purified recombinant VlsE protein (of strain B31) as the positive control. Each IR peptide was tested for reactivity (optical density at 450 nm [OD₄₅₀], y-axis) with host sera (represented by dots). (Top 3) Reactivity with 46 human sera, including those from four healthy controls (left), 25 early-stage Lyme disease patients (middle), and 17 late-stage Lyme disease patients (right). The antigens reacted significantly stronger with the patient sera than with the control sera for both the early-stage and late-stage samples (see Results for t test results). Reactivity of individual IRs, however, was not significant between the patient and control. VlsE reacted strongly with both the early and late-stage patient samples relative to the control sera. (Bottom) Reactivity with 46 patients (left), 10 naturally infected reservoir hosts (white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus) (middle), and 4 New Zealand rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) immunized with recombinant VlsE (right). Asterisks indicate levels of statistical significance: *, 0.01 < P < 0.05; **, 0.001 < P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.