Project objectives
The Bovac project addresses as main goals the identification of vaccine candidates to develop a prophylactive vaccine
against Lyme borreliosis and the identification of novel diagnostic markers enabling the early and reliant diagnosis of
disease to allow proper treatment of patients. The achievement of these goals will have a large benefit for the health of
people in Europe and beyond. In order to reach these goals, a number of clearly defined objectives will be specifically
pursued during the project.
- Collect and characterise several hundred human sera from pre-existing collections obtained from patients with
various clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis. Identify sera with high antibody titres suitable for antigen
screening and purify immunoglobulins.
- Prepare genomic libraries from Borreliae for bacterial surface display with human sera in parallel to the
preparation of IgG samples for screening. Apply genome-wide screening of these libraries for the identification of
antigenic proteins from Borrelia species.
- Determine the genomic sequence of Borrelia afzelii and provide an annotation to enable the selection of
common candidate antigens from the three Borrelia species causing Lyme boreliosis in Europe as well as diagnostic
markers by bioinformatics.
- Validate the identified and predicted antigens in order to select potential vaccine candidates to be tested in
animal models of infection.
- Select protective antigens against Lyme borreliosis by experimental animal models using recombinant proteins
in order to develop a prophylactic vaccine. Provide first toxicology data for the protective antigens.
- Identify candidate diagnostic markers specific for Lyme borreliosis by serological screening of antigens with
human sera obtained during the epidemiological study as well as with existing serum collections.
- Define possible functions of protective antigens in pathogenesis of Borreliae to support any further
development of vaccine candidates.
