title: Strong IgG antibody responses to Borrelia burgdorferi glycolipids in patients with Lyme arthritis, a late manifestation of the infection.
abstract: In this study, the membrane lipids of B. burgdorferi were separated into 16 fractions; the components in each fraction were identified, and the immunogenicity of each fraction was determined by ELISA using sera from Lyme disease patients. Only the 2 glycolipids, acylated cholesteryl galactoside (ACG, BbGL-I) and monogalactosyl diacylglycerol (MgalD, BbGL-II), were immunogenic. Early in the infection, 24 of 84 patients (29%) who were convalescent from erythema migrans and 19 of the 35 patients (54%) with neuroborreliosis had weak IgG responses to purified MgalD, and a smaller percentage of patients had early responses to synthetic ACG. However, almost all of 75 patients with Lyme arthritis, a late disease manifestation, had strong IgG reactivity with both glycolipids. Thus, almost all patients with Lyme arthritis have strong IgG antibody responses to B. burgdorferi glycolipid antigens.
authors.affiliation: Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology, Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Kathryn L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Seward
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ben-Menachem
authors.forename: Lisa J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Glickstein
authors.forename: Catherine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Costello
authors.forename: Allen C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Steere