Gupta Rishein, Salhan Sudha, Mittal Aruna
Institute of Pathology- ICMR, Safdarjang Hospital Campus, Post Box no. 4909, New Delhi - 110 029, India.
J Infect Dev Ctries. 2009 Apr 30;3(3):191-8. doi: 10.3855/jidc.35.
Proteins in the inclusion membrane of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) have been anticipated to play pivotal roles in the molecular and cellular interactions between the pathogen and host. However, there is lack of data on host immunity with respect to antibody responses against chlamydial inclusion proteins.
We used full-length fusion proteins for CT inclusion membrane proteins B and C (IncB and IncC respectively), two early-infection phase proteins, to study their role in antibody generation during human infection.
Three hundred and fifty-five women (aged 22-36 years) attending the Gynaecology outpatient department, Safdarjang Hospital, New Delhi, India were enrolled in this hospital ethical committee approved study. Out of these, 108 were diagnosed to be cervical CT-positive. Of these 108 patients, 67 (62.03%) showed ELISA positivity for IncB IgG, and 64 (59.25%) for IncC IgG. There was a positive correlation between antibody titres against IncB and IncC and with antibodies against CT major outer membrane protein (MOMP) in CT-positive sera. Our data also showed a positive association between antibody titres against IncB and IncC in patients with cervicitis and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). Significantly high antibody titres were detected in cervicitis cases compared with PID. There were significantly higher levels of serum cytokines (TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma and IL-12) in Inc-positive cervicitis cases than in PID cases. In addition, our study also showed higher IncB and IncC IgG(2) titres in comparison to respective IgG1, IgG3 and IgG4 titres in CT-positive sera.
Our data suggested that antibodies against CT IncB and IncC were prevalent in CT-positive women diagnosed with cervicitis or PID.
沙眼衣原体（CT）包涵体膜中的蛋白质预计在病原体与宿主之间的分子和细胞相互作用中发挥关键作用。然而，关于针对衣原体包涵体蛋白的抗体反应的宿主免疫数据尚缺。
我们使用CT包涵体膜蛋白B和C（分别为IncB和IncC）的全长融合蛋白，这两种蛋白处于感染早期阶段，来研究它们在人类感染期间抗体产生中的作用。
印度新德里萨夫达江医院妇科门诊的355名女性（年龄在22 - 36岁之间）参与了这项经医院伦理委员会批准的研究。其中，108人被诊断为宫颈CT阳性。在这108名患者中，67人（62.03%）IncB IgG的ELISA检测呈阳性，64人（59.25%）IncC IgG检测呈阳性。CT阳性血清中，针对IncB和IncC的抗体滴度与针对CT主要外膜蛋白（MOMP）的抗体之间存在正相关。我们的数据还显示，宫颈炎和盆腔炎（PID）患者中，针对IncB和IncC的抗体滴度之间存在正相关。与PID患者相比，宫颈炎患者检测到的抗体滴度显著更高。Inc阳性宫颈炎患者血清细胞因子（TNF-α、IFN-γ和IL-12）水平显著高于PID患者。此外，我们的研究还表明，与CT阳性血清中各自的IgG1、IgG3和IgG4滴度相比，IncB和IncC IgG(2)滴度更高。
我们的数据表明，在被诊断为宫颈炎或PID的CT阳性女性中，针对CT IncB和IncC的抗体普遍存在。
