Proteomic Profile of Circulating Immune Complexes in Dengue Infected Patients

Abstract

Dengue virus is a flavivirus that causes Dengue Fever (DF), Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), and Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS), a serious public health problem in many countries. An auto-immune response is thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of severe dengue and the increased level of Circulating Immune Complexes (CIC) in dengue infected patients. Therefore, a proteomic analysis of proteins in the CIC can provide a better knowledge of the pathogenesis and a potential biomarker for severe dengue. A proteomic strategy based immune complexome analysis was performed to analyze the composition of CIC from plasma of fifteen dengue infected patients and five healthy control children. A total of 111 proteins were identified in the CIC from all individuals, with 17 proteins shared by healthy, DF, DHF, and DSS groups. All detected proteins were of similar relative proportion in the CIC of healthy, DF, DHF, and DSS groups. The results also revealed a high similarity of CIC profiles between four groups of subjects when classifying identified proteins according to cellular components or functional protein categories. These results showed no evidence to support the roles of CIC mediated by auto-immune response in the pathogenesis of severe dengue.