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Infection and Immunity, December 1999, p. 6591-6595, Vol. 67, No. 12
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Autoantibodies to Brain Components and Antibodies to Acinetobacter calcoaceticus Are Present in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Harmale Tiwana,1 Clyde Wilson,1 John Pirt,1 William Cartmell,2 and Alan Ebringer1,3,*

Infection and Immunity Group, Division of Life Sciences, King's College,1 and Department of Rheumatology, UCL School of Medicine, Middlesex Hospital,3 and Wickham Laboratories, Wickham, Hampshire,2 London, United Kingdom

Received 10 May 1999/Returned for modification 6 July 1999/Accepted 29 September 1999

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a neurological disorder, predominantly of British cattle, which belongs to the group of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies together with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), kuru, and scrapie. Autoantibodies to brain neurofilaments have been previously described in patients with CJD and kuru and in sheep affected by scrapie. Spongiform-like changes have also been observed in chronic experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, at least in rabbits and guinea pigs, and in these conditions autoantibodies to myelin occur. We report here that animals with BSE have elevated levels of immunoglobulin A autoantibodies to brain components, i.e., neurofilaments (P < 0.001) and myelin (P < 0.001), as well as to Acinetobacter calcoaceticus (P < 0.001), saprophytic microbes found in soil which have sequences cross-reacting with bovine neurofilaments and myelin, but there were no antibody elevations against Agrobacterium tumefaciens or Escherichia coli. The relevance of such mucosal autoantibodies or antibacterial antibodies to the pathology of BSE and its possible link to prions requires further evaluation.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Infection and Immunity Group, Division of Life Sciences, King's College, 150 Stamford St., London SE1 8WA, United Kingdom. Phone: 020-7848-4302. Fax: 020-7848-4500. E-mail: alan.ebringer{at}kcl.ac.uk.

Infection and Immunity, December 1999, p. 6591-6595, Vol. 67, No. 12
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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