PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Madeline G Sell
AU  - David A. Alcorta
AU  - Andrew E. Padilla
AU  - Dakota W. Nollner
AU  - Nicole R. Hasenkampf
AU  - Havard S. Lambert
AU  - Monica E. Embers
AU  - Neil L. Spector
TI  - Visualizing <em>Borrelia burgdorferi</em> infection using a small molecule imaging probe
AID  - 10.1101/2020.09.04.284067
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.09.04.284067
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/05/2020.09.04.284067.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/05/2020.09.04.284067.full
AB  - In vivo diagnostic imaging of bacterial infections is currently reliant on targeting their metabolic pathways, an ineffective method to identify microbial species with low metabolic activity. Here we establish HS-198 as a small molecule-fluorescent conjugate that selectively targets the highly conserved bacterial protein, HtpG (High temperature protein G), within B. burgdorferi, the bacteria responsible for Lyme Disease. We describe the use of HS-198 to target morphologic forms of B. burgdorferi in both the logarithmic growth phase and the metabolically dormant stationary phase. Furthermore, in a murine infection model, systemically injected HS-198 identified B. burgdorferi as revealed by imaging in post necropsy tissue sections. These findings demonstrate how small molecule probes directed at conserved bacterial protein targets can function to identify the microbe using non-invasive imaging and potentially as scaffolds to deliver antimicrobial agents to the pathogen.