Autoantibody profiles in the sera of patients with Q fever: characterization of antigens by immunofluorescence,immunoblot and sequence analysis |
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| Authors: | MT Camacho I Outschoorn A Tellez J Sequí |
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| Institution: | 1.Departamento de Orientación Diagnóstica. Centro Nacional de Microbiologia,Instituto de Salud Carlos III,Madrid,Spain;2.Departamento de Respuesta Inmune. Centro Nacional de Microbiologia,Instituto de Salud Carlos III,Madrid,Spain;3.Servicio de Inmunología,Hospital Carlos III,Madrid,Spain |
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| 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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