Gwynne and Hu have a provisional patent pending describing the use of antiphospholipid antibodies in the diagnosis of Lyme disease. And they therefore also make it possible to tell if a patient with a prior infection now has a new infection.” “They may make it possible to tell whether treatment has eradicated the Lyme disease bacteria. While current testing makes it difficult to diagnose reinfection or successful treatment, “the anti-phospholipid autoantibodies-because of their quick increase and quick resolution with treatment-can fill these gaps as a novel additional test,” Gwynne says. “The antibodies also seem to develop much more quickly than traditional antibodies to the Lyme bacteria-likely because your body has previously created these autoantibodies and downregulated them,” says Hu. Because autoantibodies can be damaging to the host, these autoantibodies are tightly regulated and tend to disappear quickly once the stimulating factor is removed. What the scientists discovered is that both animals and patients infected with the Lyme bacterium developed autoantibodies to multiple phospholipids. “We found that the organism takes fats called phospholipids directly from its surroundings in the host, and puts them on its surface,” says Linden Hu, the Vice Dean of Research at Tufts University School of Medicine. “That finding led us to look to see if the direct use of a host fat by the bacteria might lead the immune system to recognize it as a foreign substance and create antibodies to it.” “In the process of our research, we found that the organism takes fats called phospholipids directly from its surroundings in the host, and puts them on its surface,” says Hu, the Vice Dean of Research at the school and Paul and Elaine Chervinsky Professor of Immunology. “The Lyme bacteria, despite being a very successful pathogen, is much more dependent than other bacteria on acquiring nutrients from its environment.” “We started this current work to learn how Borrelia burgdorferi acquires key nutrients, like fats, for growth,” says Gwynne. “As a result, for some individuals suffering from symptoms that resemble long-term Lyme disease infection, clinicians are never sure whether the patient has persistent Lyme disease, was cured and then reinfected, or was cured and is suffering from something else.” Targeting Fats to Fight Lyme “Traditional Lyme tests can stay positive for prolonged periods of time after treatment-years or even a lifetime,” he says. Testing to detect Lyme disease exists, but it has limitations, says Gwynne, the lead author of the study and research scientist at Tufts School of Medicine who received a Tufts Launchpad Accelerator award for his work on Lyme disease. But in 10 to 20 percent of cases, the disease’s effects can persist. Caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, Lyme disease can often be treated with antibiotics. Lyme disease can lead to debilitating long-term complications including arthritis, fatigue, mental impairment, and in the most severe cases, attacks on the heart and brain tissue. “We started this current work to learn how Borrelia burgdorferi acquires key nutrients, like fats, for growth,” says Peter Gwynne, research scientist at Tufts University School of Medicine. Caused by a bite from an infected tick, it frequently goes undetected unless a person notices the telltale rash that forms around the bite. Lyme disease, which was identified five decades ago along the Connecticut coast and spread across New England and the mid-Atlantic region, affects almost 500,000 people in the U.S. The researchers believe tests to detect these autoantibodies-antibodies that mistakenly target and react with a person's own tissues or organs-could provide clinicians with a way to diagnose the disease sooner, know whether treatment with antibiotics is working, and identify patients who have been reinfected.Īuthors of the study, published today by the Journal of Clinical Investigation, are Peter Gwynne, Luke Clendenen, and Linden Hu of the school’s Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, and colleagues at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It detects a type of antibody that infected individuals produce against a substance the Lyme bacteria acquires from the host in order to grow. ![]() Now, researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine say they have identified just such a testing mechanism. For scientists and clinicians alike, one of the Holy Grails for successfully treating and curing Lyme disease is developing tests that identify the disease sooner, show when people are cured of infection, and can diagnose reinfection.
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