Rapid decay of Salmonella flagella antibodies during human gastroenteritis: a follow up study

Tine Dalby, Mette A Strid, Natascha H Beyer, Jens Blom, Kåre Mølbak, Karen A Krogfelt

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

An indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on Salmonella re-polymerized flagella was employed to measure levels of immunoglobulin (Ig) G, IgM and IgA antibodies in sera from 303 Danish patients diagnosed with either Salmonella enteritidis or Salmonella typhimurium. The antibody-levels were assessed at one, three and six months after onset of salmonellosis, and sera from a control-group of 170 healthy blood donors were additionally analysed in order to establish cut-off values for the analysis. Cross-reactions to other Salmonella serotypes, as well as to Escherichia coli, Yersinia enterocolitica, Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter coli and Helicobacter pylori were observed. At one month after onset of symptoms, 70% of the patients recovering from a S. enteritidis infection carried detectable levels of anti-flagella antibodies, as did 77% of the patients recovering from S. typhimurium infection. Three months after onset of symptoms these detection rates had decreased to 46% and 40%; and six months after onset of symptoms the detection rates were 34% and 38%. This rapid decrease in the serum levels of flagella antibodies is in conflict with the “common knowledge” statement of a long-lasting anti-flagella immunoresponse. The present study suggests that such a tenacious statement is (or may be) inaccurate.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Microbiological Methods
Volume62
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)233-243
Number of pages11
ISSN0167-7012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Erratum in Journal of Microbiological Methods, Vol 66, iss 3, p. 576:
The publisher regrets that in the above article a typographical error occurred in Section 3.2.2, page 240. Section 3.2.2. is now reproduced correctly below.

3.2.2 Agglutinations

The tube-agglutination analyses showed considerably lower sensitivities than what was achieved by the ELISA. When analysing serum collected approximately 1 month after onset of symptoms; H-agglutinations alone detected 36% of the S. enteritidis patients and 2.7% of the S. typhimurium patients, the corresponding sensitivities using O-agglutinations were 22% and 5.3%. When combining O- and H-agglutinations, the detection rates were 44% for the S. enteritidis patients and just 8.0% for the S. typhimurium patients.

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