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One strategy used by the spirochete to evade vertebrate host immunity is to vary the structure and expression of outer membrane antigens. The<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>locus represents the best-studied example of antigenic variation in<jats:italic>B. burgdorferi<\/jats:italic>. During vertebrate host infection, recombination between the active<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>locus and silent, partial<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>copies leads to gene conversion events and the generation of novel alleles at the expression site. In the present study, we followed a population of<jats:italic>B. burgdorferi<\/jats:italic>organisms moving through vertebrate host and tick stages to complete one transmission cycle. The major goal of the study was to determine if the<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>locus was subject to different selective pressure and\/or recombination frequency at different stages of the spirochete's life cycle. We report here that the<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>genetic diversity generated within the rodent host was maintained through the larval and nymphal tick stages. Therefore, naturally infected ticks are likely to transmit spirochete populations with multiple<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>alleles into naive vertebrate hosts. Although<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>genetic diversity in mice was maintained through tick stages, the dominant<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>alleles were different between tick stages as well as between individual ticks. We propose that population-level bottlenecks experienced by spirochetes, especially during the larval-to-nymphal molt, are responsible for individual infected ticks harboring different dominant<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>alleles. Although<jats:italic>vlsE<\/jats:italic>genetic diversity is maintained through tick stages, the VlsE protein is unlikely to be of functional importance in the vector, because the protein was expressed by very few (&lt;1%) bacteria in the vector.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1128\/jb.185.15.4432-4441.2003","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2003,7,16]],"date-time":"2003-07-16T22:06:22Z","timestamp":1058393182000},"page":"4432-4441","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1128\/asmj-crossmark-policy-page","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":43,"title":["Genetic Variation at the<i>vlsE<\/i>Locus of<i>Borrelia burgdorferi<\/i>within Ticks and Mice over the Course of a Single Transmission Cycle"],"prefix":"10.1128","volume":"185","author":[{"given":"Jun","family":"Ohnishi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Brad","family":"Schneider","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado 80522"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"William B.","family":"Messer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Joseph","family":"Piesman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado 80522"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aravinda M.","family":"de Silva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"235","reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/IAI.69.5.3057-3066.2001"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","first-page":"521","volume":"57","year":"1984","unstructured":"Barbour, A. 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