Auto-immune polyradiculoneuropathy and a novel IgG biomarker in workers exposed to aerosolized porcine brain

Immunodietica: A data-driven approach to investigate interactions between diet and autoimmune disorders

Autoimmunity is on the rise around the globe. Diet has been proposed as a risk factor for autoimmunity and shown to modulate the severity of several autoimmune disorders. Yet, the interaction between diet and autoimmunity in humans remains largely unstudied. Here, we systematically interrogated commonly consumed animals and plants for peptide epitopes previously implicated in human autoimmune disease. A total of fourteen species investigated could be divided into three broad categories regarding their content in human autoimmune epitopes, which we represented using a new metric, the Gershteyn-Ferreira index (GF index). Strikingly, pig contains a disproportionately high number of unique autoimmune epitopes compared to all other species analyzed. This work uncovers a potential new link between pork consumption and autoimmunity in humans and lays the foundation for future studies on the impact of diet on the pathogenesis and progression of autoimmune disorders.

Porcine prion protein amyloid

Mammalian prions are composed of misfolded aggregated prion protein (PrP) with amyloid-like features. Prions are zoonotic disease agents that infect a wide variety of mammalian species including humans. Mammals and by-products thereof which are frequently encountered in daily life are most important for human health. It is established that bovine prions (BSE) can infect humans while there is no such evidence for any other prion susceptible species in the human food chain (sheep, goat, elk, deer) and largely prion resistant species (pig) or susceptible and resistant pets (cat and dogs, respectively). PrPs from these species have been characterized using biochemistry, biophysics and neurobiology. Recently we studied PrPs from several mammals in vitro and found evidence for generic amyloidogenicity as well as cross-seeding fibril formation activity of all PrPs on the human PrP sequence regardless if the original species was resistant or susceptible to prion disease. Porcine PrP amyloidogenicity was among the studied. Experimentally inoculated pigs as well as transgenic mouse lines overexpressing porcine PrP have, in the past, been used to investigate the possibility of prion transmission in pigs. The pig is a species with extraordinarily wide use within human daily life with over a billion pigs harvested for human consumption each year. Here we discuss the possibility that the largely prion disease resistant pig can be a clinically silent carrier of replicating prions.

Neuroinflammation in the peripheral nerve: Cause, modulator, or bystander in peripheral neuropathies?

The role of innate and adaptive inflammation as a primary driver or modifier of neuropathy in premorbidly normal nerves, and as a critical player in amplifying neuropathies of other known causes (e.g., genetic, metabolic) is incompletely understood and under-researched, despite unmet clinical need. Also, cellular and humoral components of the adaptive and innate immune system are substantial disease modifying agents in the context of neuropathies and, at least in some neuropathies, there is an identified tight interrelationship between both compartments of the immune system. Additionally, the quadruple relationship between Schwann cell, axon, macrophage, and endoneurial fibroblast, with their diverse membrane bound and soluble signalling systems, forms a distinct focus for investigation in nerve diseases with inflammation secondary to Schwann cell mutations and possibly others. Identification of key immunological effector pathways that amplify neuropathic features and associated clinical symptomatology including pain should lead to realistic and timely possibilities for translatable therapeutic interventions using existing immunomodulators, alongside the development of novel therapeutic targets.