title: Epitopes of microbial and human heat shock protein 60 and their recognition in myalgic encephalomyelitis.
abstract: Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), a common disease with chronic fatigability, cognitive dysfunction and myalgia of unknown etiology, often starts with an infection. The chaperonin human heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) occurs in mitochondria and in bacteria, is highly conserved, antigenic and a major autoantigen. The anti-HSP60 humoral (IgG and IgM) immune response was studied in 69 ME patients and 76 blood donors (BD) (the Training set) with recombinant human and E coli HSP60, and 136 30-mer overlapping and targeted peptides from HSP60 of humans, Chlamydia, Mycoplasma and 26 other species in a multiplex suspension array. Peptides from HSP60 helix I had a chaperonin-like activity, but these and other HSP60 peptides also bound IgG and IgM with an ME preference, theoretically indicating a competition between HSP60 function and antibody binding. A HSP60-based panel of 25 antigens was selected. When evaluated with 61 other ME and 399 non-ME samples (331 BD, 20 Multiple Sclerosis and 48 Systemic Lupus Erythematosus patients), a peptide from Chlamydia pneumoniae HSP60 detected IgM in 15 of 61 (24%) of ME, and in 1 of 399 non-ME at a high cutoff (p<0.0001). IgM to specific cross-reactive epitopes of human and microbial HSP60 occurs in a subset of ME, compatible with infection-induced autoimmunity.
authors: Section of Clinical Microbiology, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors: Amal
authors: A
authors: Elfaitouri
authors: Björn
authors: B
authors: Herrmann
authors: Agnes
authors: A
authors: Bölin-Wiener
authors: Yilin
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: Carl-Gerhard
authors: CG
authors: Gottfries
authors: Olof
authors: O
authors: Zachrisson
authors: Rϋdiger
authors: R
authors: Pipkorn
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Rönnblom
authors: Jonas
authors: J
authors: Blomberg
mesh_terms: D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000276:immunology; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D018834:Chaperonin 60 / Q000276:immunology*; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D015673:Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D001323:Autoantibodies; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D018834:Chaperonin 60; D000939:Epitopes