Autoantibodies to vimentin different modifications in patients with tuberculosis and different granulomatous lung diseases

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis is a granulomatous disease of infectious origin, etiology factor of it is M.Tuberculosis. M.Tuberculosis is known to induce autoimmune processes because of mimicry of bacterial proteins with autoantigens. Recently the attention of scientist was attracted to protein vimentin, that could be an autoantigen after micobaterial infection. The aim of the study is to measure the concentration of different autoantibodies to vimentin in patients with tuberculosis (TB) and different granulomatous lung diseases (GLD). Material and Methods: There were studied the serum samples of patients with TB (n=28), a group of GLD (n=30), that included 15 patients with granulomatous polyangiitis and 15 with various alveolites, and a control group (n=40) (healthy subjects). The level of antibodies to modified citrullinated vimentin (anti-MCV) and to cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) were measured with ELISA. Statistical analysis was performed with the Microsoft Office software and GraphPad Prism 6. Supported by Grant (contract №14.W03.31.0009 of 13.02.2017). Results: High level of anti-MCV was found in all groups, but more frequently in patients with TB in 60.7% cases (17/28) with the significant difference with group of GLD and healthy subjects (p=0,0003 vs. p=0.0002). High level of anti-CCP wasn’t identified in the studied groups. Conclusions: High concentration of anti-MCV is more common for patients with TB, while anti-CCP has no significance for all studied lung diseases. Absence of anti-CCP can be evidence, that citrullination of vimentin is not necessary for development of autoimmune reaction in tuberculosis patients.