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A Campylobacter jejuni gene associated with immune-mediated neuropathy

Nature Medicine volume 7, pages 752–753 (2001)Cite this article

To the editor

Campylobacter jejuni is the most frequent cause of bacterial diarrhea, which leads to the Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) or the Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS) in 1 in every 1000 infections1. Neuropathy is probably triggered by molecular mimicry between C. jejuni lipooligo- or lipopolysaccharides (LOS or LPS) and ganglioside epitopes on peripheral nerve tissue. Biochemical studies indeed revealed that C. jejuni LOS contains ganglioside-like structures with sialic acid as an essential ingredient2. Most C. jejuni strains involved in GBS or MFS isolated in the United States and Japan are serotype O:19 and are genetically closely related3. This hampers the search for bacterial factors involved in the development of GBS or MFS based on genetic comparisons among strains. Recently, however, a group of phenotypically and genetically unrelated GBS/MFS-associated C. jejuni strains was described4. This provided the opportunity to search for the differential presence of genes putatively involved in the biosynthesis of the gangliosides-mimicking epitopes with emphasis on the LOS-modifying sialic acid transferase- encoding gene cstII (ref. 11).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Alex van Belkum, Nicole van den Braak, Peggy Godschalk, Wim Ang, Henri Verbrugh & Hubert Endtz

  2. Neurology and Immunology, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Wim Ang & Bart Jacobs

  3. Institute of Biological Sciences, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Michel Gilbert & Warren Wakarchuk

  4. Alex van Belkum

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  1. Alex van Belkum
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van Belkum, A., van den Braak, N., Godschalk, P. et al. A Campylobacter jejuni gene associated with immune-mediated neuropathy. Nat Med 7, 752–753 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/89831

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