Structural characterization of the Borrelia burgdorferi outer surface protein BBA73 implicates dimerization as a functional mechanism

We observed that the BBA73 protein exists as a homodimer both in the crystal and in solution. The monomers interact with their N-terminal α-helices and form a cleft that could potentially serve as a ligand or receptor binding site. To confirm that the protein dimerizes through the interaction of the N-terminal regions, we produced an N-terminal deletion mutant of BBA73 to disrupt dimerization, and we determined the crystal structure of the truncated BBA73 protein at 1.9 Å resolution. The truncated protein did not form a homodimer, and the crystal structure confirmed that the overall fold is identical to that of the native BBA73 protein. Notably, a paralogous protein CspA from B. burgdorferi with known crystal structure also forms a homodimer, albeit through an entirely different interaction between the monomers.