Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, November 2007, p. 1437-1441, Vol. 14, No. 11
Title: Serum Reactivity against Borrelia burgdorferi OspA in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Yu-Fan Hsieh,1 Han-Wen Liu,1 Tsai-Ching Hsu,1 James C.-C. Wei,2 Chien-Ming Shih,3 Peter J. Krause,4 and Gregory J. Tsay1,2* Institute of Immunology,1 Department of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan,2 Department of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan,3 Department of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, Connecticut4
Abstract: Lyme arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis share common clinical features and synovial histology. It is unclear whether they also share similar pathogenesis. Previous studies have shown that the severity and duration of Lyme arthritis correlate directly with serum concentrations of antibody against outer surface protein A (OspA) of the causative pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi.
We tested the sera of 68 subjects with rheumatoid arthritis, 147 subjects with other autoimmune diseases, and 44 healthy subjects who had never had Lyme disease, as well as sera of 16 patients who had Lyme disease, for reactivity against the B. burgdorferi OspA protein.
The sera of about a quarter of the rheumatoid arthritis patients and a 10th of the autoimmune disease and Lyme disease patients reacted against OspA antigen.
Of 50 rheumatoid arthritis patients who could be evaluated for disease severity, a 28-joint count disease activity score of >2.6 was noted for 11 of 15 (73%) patients whose sera reacted against OspA antigen and 13 of 35 (37%; P < 0.05) whose sera were nonreactive. Serum reactivity against OspA antigen is associated with the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Yeah, but did they use Igenex?? Doubt it!! The number is probably triple that figure, at least!
Posted by tailz (Member # 10014) on :
Yep - they should have used IGeneX, but this is a start. At least they are considering it now.
Posted by TerryK (Member # 8552) on :
Wow, thanks for posting. My cousin has arthritis and I've been trying to get him to look at lyme since so many in my family have it and he is an avid hunter.
Good point tutu and tailz.
Terry
Posted by daise (Member # 13622) on :
Fantastic find! Thank you.
Daise
Posted by funknugget (Member # 12897) on :
Hi. Can someone put this a little more in layman's terms for me as to what this means? I'm learning a lot lately, but there's a still a lot I don't understand.
They put a protein from the lyme bacteria into the serum taken from these patients and some of them "reacted to it". Did I state that correctly to put it in simple terms? And what does "reacted to it" mean? The serum produced an immune response? And this therefore means that other forms of arthritis might actually be caused by borrellia infection?
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