Borrelia burgdorferi gene expression profiling with membrane-based arrays

Publisher Summary The chapter describes Borrelia burgdorferi membrane arrays contain PCR-amplified open reading frames (ORFs) from Borrelia burgdorferi strain B31 MI, and illustrates the strain whose genome sequence. The B. burgdorferi B31 genome is unique among fully sequenced bacterial genomes in that it consists of a linear chromosome 910,725 bp in length and a collection of 9 circular and 12 linear plasmids. Among the 1689 putative open reading frames (ORFs), 855 are chromosome encoded and 834 are plasmid encoded. More than 90% of the Borrelia burgdorferi plasmid ORFs are unrelated to any known bacterial sequences. The novel genes found on the Borrelia burgdorferi plasmids may, therefore, contribute to the ability of this pathogen to survive and maintain its complex life cycle. Since the identities of all the spots (ORFs) on the array are known, the complete gene expression profile of an organism under a given set of conditions may be analyzed with a single array.