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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2003, p. 1957-1962, Vol. 41, No. 5
0095-1137/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JCM.41.5.1957-1962.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae-Specific Antibodies Binding to the VD2 and VD3 Regions of the Major Outer Membrane Protein

Marcus Klein,^* Arne Kötz, Katussevani Bernardo, and Martin Krönke

Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology, and Hygiene, University of Cologne, 50935 Cologne, Germany

Received 4 September 2002/ Returned for modification 8 October 2002/ Accepted 14 February 2003

Although Chlamydia pneumoniae is an important human pathogen, the antigens eliciting a specific humoral immune response remain elusive. We scrutinized several recombinant chlamydial surface proteins for species-specific recognition by a panel of human sera previously tested for the presence of anti-C. pneumoniae and anti-C. trachomatis antibodies by microimmunofluorescence and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The 15-kDa cysteine-rich protein (CrpA), porin-b (PorB), 9-kDa outer membrane protein (OMP3), 60-kDa outer membrane protein (OMP2), and four fragments of the major outer membrane protein (MOMP) representing each variable domain (VD) were overexpressed in Escherichia coli, affinity purified, and employed for Western blot analysis. None of the sera tested contained antibodies recognizing PorB and OMP3 of C. pneumoniae. Sera from C. pneumoniae-immune patients cross-reacted with OMP2 of C. trachomatis, and sera from C. trachomatis-immune patients cross-reacted with CrpA of C. pneumoniae, indicating that some of chlamydial surface molecules share antigenic epitopes. In contrast, the VD2, as well as the VD3, regions of the MOMP of C. pneumoniae were only recognized by C. pneumoniae-positive sera, suggesting the existence of species-specific epitopes. The identification of such epitopes of cell surface molecules provides new insights into C. pneumoniae-specific immune responses and may be of value for the improvement of C. pneumoniae-specific diagnostic assay systems based on defined recombinant antigens.

Present address: Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infection Control, Hospital of Halmstad, 30185 Halmstad, Sweden.

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