Lyme Disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, and Lipid Immunogens

The human immune system detects potentially pathogenic microbes with receptors that respond to microbial metabolites. While the overall immune signaling pathway is known in considerable detail, the initial molecular signals, the microbially produced immunogens, for important diseases like Lyme disease (LD) are often not well-defined. The immunogens for LD are produced by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, and a galactoglycerolipid (1) has been identified as a key trigger for the inflammatory immune response that characterizes LD. This report corrects the original structural assignment of 1 to 3, a change of an alpha-galactopyranose to an alpha-galactofuranose headgroup. The seemingly small change has important implications for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of LD.