title: Serovar-specific immune responses to peptides of variable regions of Chlamydia trachomatis major outer membrane protein in serovar D-infected women.
abstract: The role of major outer membrane protein (MOMP) variable regions in the interaction of chlamydiae and host cells has been evaluated and their role in neutralization of antibodies has been clearly demonstrated. There are also studies that delineate the contribution of these regions to the cell-mediated immune response of the host and suggest that serovar E elicits serovar-specific immune responses in infected humans. However, further studies with other serovars are required to confirm these findings and to elucidate the role and importance of serovar-specific responses of variable regions of MOMP in other serovars. We, therefore, performed a detailed analysis of the humoral and cellular immune responses against the serovar D-specific variable segments (VS) of MOMP in women infected with Chlamydia trachomatis. We found that VS4 elicits significantly higher responses (both humoral and cellular) than other VS peptides (VS1, VS2 and VS3). VS4 elicited significantly higher (P < 0.0001) proliferative responses, interferon-gamma levels (P < 0.0001) as well as higher prevalence (P < 0.0001) of IgG antibodies against VS4 in serovar D-infected patients as compared to patients infected with other serovars, suggesting its role in serovar-specific immune responses.
authors.affiliation: Division of Tissue Culture/Microbiology, Institute of Pathology, ICMR, Safdarjung Hospital Campus, Post Box no. 4909, New Delhi, 110029, India.
authors.forename: Pragya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Rishein
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Hem Chandra
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Jha
authors.forename: Rajneesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jha
authors.forename: Apurb Rashmi
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Bhengraj
authors.forename: Sudha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salhan
authors.forename: Aruna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mittal
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology*; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology; D002692:Chlamydia trachomatis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
chemical_list: D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins