Alan G. Barbour

M.D., Tufts University, Boston, MA, 1972

University of California, Irvine
Medical Sciences I,
Irvine, CA 92697-4025
(949) 824-5626
abarbour@uci.edu
 

Spirochetes are a separate phylum of eubacteria; several members of this group cause serious diseases of humans and domestic animals. However, compared to other types of bacteria little is known of their molecular biology and physiology. We are taking a multi-discipline approach, including methods of genetics, cell biology, and immunology, to study in depth two spirochetal diseases: Lyme disease and relapsing fever. These tick-borne infections are notable for multiphasic antigenic variation through DNA recombinations in the case of relapsing fever, the occurrence of chronic arthritis in the case of Lyme disease, and invasion of and persistence in the brain in the case of both diseases. The etiologic agents are in the genus Borrelia, members of which have genomes that uniquely are largely linear. Our basic research findings are extended to the development of vaccines and new therapeutic strategies against these and other bacterial diseases. One Borrelia cell surface protein that we described and cloned the gene for is in human field trials as a recombinant vaccine against Lyme disease.

Pacific-Southwest Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research

Dr. Barbours Personal Web Page

UCI Faculty Profile: Alan G. Barbour


Selected Publications:
Sohaskey, C.D. and Barbour, A.G. (2000) Spirochaeta aurantia has diacetyl chloramphenicol esterase activity. J. Bacteriol. 182:1930-1934.

ZŸckert, W.R. and Barbour, A.G. (2000) Stability of Borrelia burgdorferi bdr loci in vitro and in vivo. Infect. Immun. 68:1727-1730.

Luke, C.J., Marshall, M.A., Zahradnik, J.M., Bybel, M., Menefee, B.E., and Barbour, A.G. (2000) Growth-inhibiting antibody responses of humans vaccinated with recombinant OspA and/or infected with Borrelia burgdorferi. J. Infect. Dis. 181:1062-1068.

Barbour, A. G., C. J. Carter, and C. D. Sohaskey. (2000) Surface protein variation by expression site switching in the relapsing fever agent Borrelia hermsii. Infect. Immun. 68:7114-7121.

Barbour, A.G. and Restrepo, B.I. (2000) Antigenic variation in vector-borne pathogens: a common strategy. Emerging Inf Dis 6:449-457

Jasinskas, A., Jaworski, D.C., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Amblyomma americanum: specific uptake of immunoglobulins into tick hemolymph during feeding. Exp. Parasitol. 96:313-221.

Barbour, A. G., and V. Bundoc. (2001) In vitro and in vivo neutralization of the relapsing fever agent Borrelia hermsii with serotype-specific immunoglobulin M antibodies. Infect. Immun. 69:1009-1015.

ZŸckert, W.R., Kerentseva, T.A., Lawson, C.L., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Structural conservation within the variable Vsp-OspC lipoprotein family. J. Biol. Chem. 276:457-463.

Bunikis, J., Mirian, H., Bunikiene, E., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Non-heritable change of a spirochete's phenotype by decoration of the cell surface with exogenous lipoproteins. Mol. Microbiol. 40:387-396.

Cadavid, D., Pachner, A.R., Estanislao, L., Patalapati, R., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Isogenic serotypes of Borrelia turicatae show different localization in the brain and skin of mice. Infect. Immun. 69:3389-3397.

Tsao, J., Barbour, A.G., Luke, C.J., Fikrig, E., and Fish, D. (2001) OspA immunization decreases transmission of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes from infected Peromyscus leucopus mice to larval Ixodes scapularis ticks. Vector-borne Zoonotic Dis. 1:65-74.

Jaworski, D.C., Jasinskas, A., Metz, C.N., Bucala, R., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Identification and characterization of a homologue of the proinflammatory cytokine Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor in the tick, Amblyomma americanum. Insect Mol. Biol. 10:323-331.

Rich, S.M., Sawyer, S.M., and Barbour, A.G. (2001) Antigen polymorphism in Borrelia hermsii, a clonal pathogenic bacterium. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98:15038-15043.

Barbour, A.G. (2002) Antigenic variation of relapsing fever Borrelia and other pathogenic bacteria. In N.L. Craig, R. Craigie, M. Gellert, and A. Lambowitz. Mobile DNA II. Washington, D.C., American Society for Microbiology. pp. 972-994.

Barbour, A.G. (2003) Antigenic variation in Borrelia: relapsing fever and Lyme borreliosis. In A. Craig and A. Scherf. Antigenic Variation. London, Academic Press. pp. 319-356.

Zhong, J. and Barbour, A.G. (2003) Cross-species hybridization of a Borrelia burgdorferi DNA array reveals infection- and culture-associated genes of the unsequenced genome of the relapsing fever agent Borrelia hermsii. Mol. Microbiol., in press.

Bunikis, J., Tsao, J. Luke, C.J., Luna, M.G., Fish, D., and Barbour, A.G. (2003) Borrelia burgdorferi infection in a natural population of Peromyscus leucopus mice: a longitudinal study in an area highly endemic for Lyme borreliosis. J. Infect. Dis., in press.

List of Publications via PubMed (NIH National Library of Medicine)