Unprecedented genetic diversity suggests importance of understudied
PFam54 paralogs to Lyme borreliosis spirochetes
Abstract
Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most common vector-borne disease in the
Northern Hemisphere caused by spirochetes belonging to the Borrelia
burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl) complex. Borrelia spirochetes circulate in
obligatory transmission cycles between tick vectors and different
vertebrate hosts. To successfully complete this complex transmission
cycle, Bbsl encode for an arsenal of proteins including the PFam54
protein family with known, or proposed, influences to reservoir host
and/or vector adaptation. Even so, only fragmentary information is
available regarding the naturally occurring level of variation in the
PFam54 gene array and its impact on Borrelia pathogenesis. Utilizing
whole genome data from isolates (n=141) originated from the three major
LB-causing Borrelia species across Eurasia (B. afzelii, B. bavariensis,
and B. garinii), we aimed to characterize the diversity of the PFam54
gene array in these isolates to facilitate understanding the evolution
of PFam54 orthologs on an intra- and interspecies level. We found an
extraordinarily high level of variation in the PFam54 gene array with 39
PFam54 paralogs belonging to 23 orthologous groups including five novel
paralogs. Even so, the gene array appears to have remained fairly stable
over the evolutionary history of these Borrelia species. Interestingly,
genes outside Clade IV previously associated with host or, proposed,
vector adaptation more frequently displayed signatures of diversifying
selection. Taken together, our findings support the idea that non-Clade
IV orthologs could play a larger role in host and/or vector adaptation
than previously thought.