Autoantibody profiles in the sera of patients with Q fever: characterization of antigens by immunofluorescence, immunoblot and sequence analysis.
J Autoimmune Dis
; 2: 10, 2005 Nov 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-16280092
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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1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Autoimmune Dis
Año:
2005
Tipo del documento:
Article
Pais de publicación:
Reino Unido