Camacho MT, Outschoorn I, Tellez A, Sequí J. Autoantibody profiles in the sera of patients with Q fever: characterization of antigens by immunofluorescence, immunoblot and sequence analysis.
JOURNAL OF AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES 2005;
2:10. [PMID:
16280092 PMCID:
PMC1298324 DOI:
10.1186/1740-2557-2-10]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2005] [Accepted: 11/10/2005] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Recent reports have shown that some of the immunological aspects of Q fever, a rickettsiosis caused by Coxiella burnetii, could be related to self-antigen responses. The aim of this study was to determine the specificity of the autoantibody response of patients with acute and chronic Coxiella infections. Smooth muscle and cardiac muscle-specific autoantibodies were observed in significant percentages in acutely or chronically affected Q fever patients when compared to healthy volunteers. Moreover, the incidence of cardiac muscle-specific autoantibody was significantly higher among chronically ill patients compared to acutely ill patients. Moreover, a band of 50 kD of a HeLa extract was detected in most of the sera of individuals with chronic infections and previous sequence analysis suggests that this antigen presents a high degree of homology with the human actin elongation factor 1 alpha. Further research would be necessary to confirm if antibodies to human cytoskeletal proteins could be of clinical importance in chronically infected Q fever patients.
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