Abstract
Background: During the past 10 years in our clinical immunology laboratory, we have observed that some patients with high titers of antibodies against the Herpes family of viruses also exhibit elevation in antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi antigens. Furthermore, when sera from patients with high IgG antibody levels against B. burgdorferi and Epstein-Barr virus were tested for food-specific antibodies, the degree of immune reactivity to food antigens was much higher in patients who were seropositive for B. burgdorferi and EBV antigens than in those who were seronegative. We purchased monoclonal and affinity-purified polyclonal antibodies against B. burgdorferi, Herpes family viruses and other infectious agents, and reacted them with 180 different food antigens so we could examine the degree of cross-reactivity between infectious agents and various food antigens. Methods: Using ELISA methodology, we applied monoclonal and affinity-purified polyclonal antibodies against Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, measles, rubella, herpes simplex type 1, Varicella zoster, Chlamydia pneumoniae, streptokinase, Yersinia enterocolitica and Borrelia burgdorferi, to 180 different food antigens in order to explain some baffling test results detected during lab testing. Results: While some of these antibodies did not react to any of the tested food antigens, B. burgdorferi antibody reacted with 39 foods, EBV-VCA antibody with 20, EBNA-1 antibody with 10, EBV-EA antibody with 20, rotavirus antibody with 11, and measles antibody with 4 out of 180 food antigens. We demonstrated that these antibodyantigen reactions are specific, since only specific antigens and not non-specific antigens inhibited these immune reactivities. Conclusions: Results indicate that the presence of some of the antibodies against infectious agents detected in human serum can result in false-positivity in serologic tests for food antigens used in the diagnosis of food adverse reactions. These results may explain antibody detection in the sera of many individuals against various food antigens that they have never actually eaten.
Highlights
The false-positive rate of any laboratory test is the function of the specificity of the test and prevalence of the disease in the tested population [1]
While the application of specific antibodies against CMV and rubella to CMV- or rubella-coated wells resulted in a strong reaction or OD >3.0, the addition of these antibodies to wells coated with 180 different food antigens resulted in an OD of 0.1-0.3, which was equivalent to the ELISA background
We examined the reactivity of monoclonal antibodies made against various antigenic components of B. burgdorferi to B. burgdorferi lysatecoated wells as well as to the 180 food antigens
Summary
The false-positive rate of any laboratory test is the function of the specificity of the test and prevalence of the disease in the tested population [1]. On the other hand, foodderived peptides have been shown to provoke antibody response in patients with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection as well as in patients with autoimmune disorders [6] For this reason, attempts have been made to characterize autoantigenic epitopes in different autoimmune diseases using random peptide phage libraries [7,8,9]. One of the peptides identified by affinity purification of an RA patient’s serum showed homology with glycine-rich cell wall proteins (GRP) in cereals and with EBV nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA-1) [14,15] This glycine-alanine repeated sequence (SGGGYGDGGAHGGGYGGGA) is shown to be homologous to cytokeratin, collagen, actin and human ribonucleoprotein [6,15]. We purchased monoclonal and affinity-purified polyclonal antibodies against B. burgdorferi, Herpes family viruses and other infectious agents, and reacted them with 180 different food antigens so we could examine the degree of cross-reactivity between infectious agents and various food antigens
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