association of mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis with multiple sclerosis in sardinian patients鸟型分支杆菌协会无性系种群。.pdf

Association of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis with Multiple Sclerosis in Sardinian Patients 1 2 1 1 3,4 2 Davide Cossu , Eleonora Cocco , Daniela Paccagnini , Speranza Masala , Niyaz Ahmed , Jessica Frau , 2 1 Maria Giovanna Marrosu , Leonardo A. Sechi * ` 1 Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia e Virologia, Universita di Sassari, Sassari, Italy, 2 Centro Sclerosi Multipla, Dipartimento di Scienze ` Cardiovascolari e Neurologiche, Universita di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy, 3 Pathogen Biology Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India, 4 Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection is highly spread in the ruminant herds of Sardinia, in the Western Mediterranean. The objective of this study was to investigate prevalence of MAP infection in association with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) using clinical specimen from patients and controls. We analyzed samples for the presence of MAP specific DNA and to demonstrate humoral response to a MAP protein (MAP2694), a predicted homologue of the T-cell receptor gamma-chain/complement component 1 of the host. We found presence of MAP DNA in 42% of the MS patients and an extremely significant humoral immune response revealed by the MS patients against the MAP protein. In our op