FIG. 4.

Appearance of antibodies against DbpA during the course of tick-transmitted B. burgdorferi infection of C3H/HeJ mice. Groups of 10 mice were infested with I. scapularis nymphs harboring B. burgdorferi 297 (27); at various intervals postinfestation (denoted in weeks [wk] at the tops of the immunoblot strips), blood from mice within each group was collected and sera were then obtained and pooled. Recombinant DbpA was subjected to SDS-PAGE as previously described (14). Nitrocellulose strips were immunoblotted with 1:500 dilutions of the respective pooled sera. The lane at the right is a strip probed with rat antiserum against DbpA (α-DbpA). Numbers at the left denote protein apparent molecular weights (in thousands).