PtpA protein from Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis as a potential marker of rheumatoid arthritis in humans.

Autor:	Hernández-Bello J; Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Biomédicas, Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico., Bach H; Division of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada., Cerpa-Cruz S; Division of Rheumatology, Guadalajara Civil Hospital 'Fray Antonio Alcalde', Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico., Sánchez-Zuno GA; Department of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States of America., Hernández-Gutiérrez R; Biotecnología Médica y Farmacéutica, Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnología y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico., Nicoletti F; Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy., Saraceno A; Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy., Muñoz-Valle J; Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Biomédicas, Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	PloS one [PLoS One] 2025 Jan 03; Vol. 20 (1), pp. e0316727. Date of Electronic Publication: 2025 Jan 03 (Print Publication: 2025).
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0316727
Abstrakt:	Studies have noted the connection between Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) and autoimmunity. MAP is an intracellular pathogen that infects and multiplies in macrophages. To overcome the hostile environment elicited by the macrophage, MAP secretes a battery of virulence factors to neutralize the toxic effects of the macrophage. One of the virulence factors is the Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase A (PtpA), a protein secreted by MAP that interferes in the phago-lysosome fusion, rendering the pathogen unnoticed in the cytoplasm of the macrophage. This study aimed to assess the presence of PtpA antibodies in the sera of Mexican individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and investigate its possible use as a biomarker for disease activity. We compared RA patients (n = 100) to control subjects (CS) (n = 100) by assessing specific immune responses to PtpA (the antigen) by an indirect ELISA method. Results showed a significant difference in PtpA levels between RA and CS, with RA patients having a median OD of 0.4645 compared to 0.1372 in CS. Antibodies against PtpA were present in 95% of RA patients and 16% of CS (AUC = 0.9163, p = 0.0001). Male control subjects showed higher PtpA reactivity than female CS. The Disease Activity Score (DAS-28) analysis showed that individuals with moderate to high disease activity had lower levels of PtpA reactivity. The results suggest a potential connection between RA and MAP infection. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. (Copyright: © 2025 Hernández-Bello et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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