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Infection and Immunity, March 2002, p. 1202-1208, Vol. 70, No. 3
0019-9567/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.3.1202-1208.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Departments of Neurology,1 Immunology,2 Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Erasmus University/Academic Hospital Dijkzigt Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands,3 Department of Neurology, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow G51 4TF, Scotland4
Received 22 August 2001/ Returned for modification 5 November 2001/ Accepted 21 November 2001
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Ganglioside mimics have been identified in C. jejuni LPS by biochemical and serological methods (17) (Fig. 1). Mass spectometry revealed the presence of GM1- and GD1a-like structures in LPS from GBS patients (22, 36) and GD3-like structures in MFS-associated LPS (25). Serological studies with ganglioside-binding toxins and monoclonal antiganglioside antibodies confirmed these findings (26, 37). Most C. jejuni isolates from GBS and MFS patients that were investigated by biochemical and/or serological methods exhibit ganglioside mimicry, but this may have been caused by selection bias. Little information is available concerning the expression of ganglioside mimics in isolates from uncomplicated C. jejuni enteritis patients compared to neuropathy-associated isolates (26). Furthermore, detailed studies on antibody responses to glycolipid antigens such as LPS and gangliosides in C. jejuni enteritis patients have been limited.
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| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Serology. Acute-phase serum samples were tested for IgM and IgG antibody reactivity against asialo-GM1 (GA1), GM1, GM2, GD1a, GD1b, GD3, and GQ1b by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and confirmed by thin-layer chromatography as described previously (10). All glycolipids were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, Mo.), except GQ1b (Biocarb, Lund, Sweden). LPS fractions from all isolates were isolated with the hot-phenol-water method and processed as described previously (12). All LPS fractions showed a dense band migrating at 8 to 15 kDa after electrophoresis on a polyacrylamide gel and silver staining (Novex, San Diego, Calif.), indicating the presence of LPS (5). For the detection of anti-LPS reactivity, serum samples were tested by ELISA at dilutions of 1:100 and 1:1,000 as described previously (11). Samples were considered positive when the corrected optical density value was >3 standard deviations of the mean optical density for a group of 12 healthy controls without serological evidence of a recent C. jejuni infection.
To assess serum samples for cross-reactive antibodies between LPS and gangliosides, serum was incubated with C. jejuni LPS conjugated to Octyl-Sepharose CL4B beads. Then, 250 µg of LPS was added to 1 ml of Octyl-Sepharose CL4B in methanol-water (1:1 [vol/vol]) containing 0.1 M KCl and mixed for 1.5 h. After several washes with phosphate-buffered saline (pH 7.8; PBS), serum samples were incubated with LPS-Sepharose conjugates for 5 h at 4°C. After centrifugation, absorbed serum samples were tested for anti-LPS and antiglycolipid reactivity as described above. Serum samples that were incubated with beads coupled to LPS from the Penner O:3 serostrain that does not contain a ganglioside mimic (6) or uncoupled beads served as controls.
Serological typing of C. jejuni LPS. (i) Polyclonal serum panel Purified LPS was tested in an ELISA-based system for the presence of ganglioside-like epitopes with a panel of ganglioside-reactive sera divided into four groups. Some, but not all, of the samples were from culture-positive GBS or MFS patients. The first group (GM1) consisted of 10 serum samples with IgG anti-GM1 reactivity. The second group (GQ1b) consisted of 10 serum samples with IgG anti-GQ1b reactivity. The third group (Other) consisted of four serum samples with antiganglioside reactivity against GM2 and GD1a. This group was included to detect ganglioside mimics that could not be defined with sera from the GM1 and GQ1b group. The fourth group (HC) consisted of 12 healthy controls without serological evidence for a recent C. jejuni infection. An LPS was considered to have a GM1-like epitope when at least 3 of 10 serum samples from the GM1 group had an optical density of >3 standard deviations above the mean of the healthy controls, with a minimum optical density of 0.300 (to avoid false-positive samples due to the low levels of anti-LPS reactivity seen in healthy control samples). The criteria for LPS bearing a GQ1b-like epitope were similar with the GQ1b panel of sera. An LPS was considered to have an undefined ganglioside-like epitope, which could not be designated GM1-like or GQ1b-like, when the LPS showed reactivity with only one or two serum samples in either the GM1 or the GQ1b group or reactivity with one or more serum samples from the "other" group.
(ii) Toxins, lectin, and MAbs. The specificity of the binding of cholera toxin B subunit (CT), tetanus toxin fragment C (TT), peanut agglutinin (PNA), and the monoclonal antiganglioside antibodies (MAbs) Sm1 (31), Wo1 (21), Ha1rbc (30), CGM3 (8), and EG1 (8) was validated by binding these ligands to GA1, GM1, GM2, GM3, GD1a, GD1b, GD3, GT1b, or GQ1b or to bacterial LPS. Plates (96 well; Nunc Immunosorb, Roskilde, Denmark) were coated with glycolipids as described previously (11). Wells without glycolipids served as controls. Peroxidase-conjugated CT (List Biologicals, Campbell, Calif.; Sigma), biotin-conjugated CT (List Biologicals), peroxidase-conjugated TT (List Biologicals), peroxidase-conjugated PNA (Sigma), or the MAbs diluted in PBS-bovine serum albumin were added for 1 h at room temperature (toxins) or overnight at 4°C (MAbs). After being washed with PBS, plates containing peroxidase-conjugated ligands were developed with o-phenyldiamine. Biotin-conjugated CT was incubated with peroxidase-conjugated avidin (ABC Kit; Vector, Burlingame, Calif.) for 1 h at room temperature, followed by washing and development. Plates containing MAbs were incubated with peroxidase-conjugated anti-human or anti-mouse antibodies and washed with PBS before development. Specificity of binding to purified glycolipids was confirmed with a thin-layer chromatography overlay (14).
Statistical analysis. Statistical analysis was performed with Stata verson 6.0 (Stata, College Station, Tex.). Differences in proportions were tested with the Fisher exact test. Binding of toxins, lectin, and MAbs was evaluated with the Mann-Whitney U test. All tests were two-sided. A P value of <0.05 was considered significant.
| RESULTS |
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Serological typing of C. jejuni isolates with GBS or MFS patient sera. Examples of LPS reactivity with antiganglioside antibody containing serum samples and validation of the serum panel with LPS with a known biochemical structure are shown in Fig. 2. The antiganglioside serum panel reacted with all but one LPS from the GBS and MFS isolates, indicating the presence of ganglioside mimics in almost all neuropathy-associated isolates. LPS from most isolates reacted with serum samples from more than one group, suggesting the presence of multiple ganglioside mimics. The Penner serotype was not related to the expression of ganglioside-like epitopes on the LPS. The frequency of GM1-like epitopes was higher in GBS-associated isolates than in MFS or control isolates (Table 2). GQ1b-like epitopes occurred more frequently in MFS-associated isolates than in GBS or control isolates (P = 0.006, Table 2). Of the control enteritis isolates, 35% did not react with any of the antiganglioside sera, indicating the absence of ganglioside mimics in these isolates.
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| DISCUSSION |
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The GBS patients were highly diverse in their antiganglioside specificity, but almost all had antibody reactivity against the LPS from the isolate with which they had been infected. This serves as further evidence that the antiganglioside antibodies in GBS and MFS patients result from the previous infection with C. jejuni. The presence of strong anti-LPS antibody reactivity in patients without reactivity against a panel of gangliosides indicates the presence of antibody reactivity against unknown gangliosides. In contrast to the findings in neuropathy patients, the response to bacterial and neural glycolipids was significantly lower in patients with an uncomplicated C. jejuni enteritis, despite the presence of ganglioside mimics in the LPS of some enteritis isolates. This finding underscores the influence of host-related factors such as polymorphisms in immune-response genes, in addition to bacterium-related factors, in the development of neurological symptoms after an infection with C. jejuni (18, 26). This may either depend on differential expression of ganglioside mimics in C. jejuni LPS, due to phase variation in genes encoding glycosyltransferases (16), or to the influence of other immunomodulating factors (28).
For the present study we developed a method with serum samples containing antiganglioside antibody reactivity to detect and define ganglioside-like epitopes on C. jejuni LPS. Serum samples containing antibody reactivity to gangliosides other than GM1 or GQ1b reacted strongly with LPS from several isolates, which indicates the presence of other, as-yet-undefined ganglioside mimics. In addition, most LPS fractions reacted with serum samples from more than one serum group, suggesting the presence of multiple ganglioside epitopes on one isolate (34). The data obtained by the serum panel method were confirmed with MAbs and toxins, thus demonstrating the validity of the method.
The lack of CT binding of all MFS-related isolates and some GBS-related isolates is important since CT-binding assays are currently being used to identify isolates that have a higher potential to induce neurological symptoms (18, 24). The anti-GA1 and anti-GM1 MAbs reacted selectively with a limited number of GBS-related isolates. These results indicate that the use of very specific ligands may not be sufficient to detect the wide variety of ganglioside mimics in C. jejuni LPS. Consequently, GBS patients may have antiganglioside antibodies that are directed against GM1-like gangliosides (e.g., GM1b or GalNAc-GD1a) (2, 35). Together, these results indicate that CT and the GM1 panel may recognize GM1-like immunoreactive epitopes on C. jejuni LPS and not necessarily an exact structural mimic of the GM1 oligosaccharide. Furthermore, our results indicate that approaches with the serum panel, toxins and lectins, and monoclonal antibodies all have their advantages and drawbacks. The observed good correlation between the three methods lead us to conclude that all three methods can be used to define "GM1-like" and "GQ1b-like" epitopes.
In conclusion, our data provide strong support for the hypothesis that molecular mimicry between C. jejuni LPS and gangliosides plays a key role in the induction of antiganglioside antibodies and neurological symptomes in patients with GBS or MFS. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that heterogeneity in the LPS structure determines the specificity of the antiglycolipid response and thereby the clinical features in patients with a post-Campylobacter neuropathy. The development of serological assays for the determination of ganglioside mimicry in C. jejuni LPS may be of great help in determining genetic markers for potentially neuropathic strains (27).
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank P. Herbrink of the Diagnostic Centre SSDZ, Delft, The Netherlands, for performing Campylobacter infection serology and A. van Belkum for critically reading the manuscript.
| FOOTNOTES |
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