Gabriele Di Sante, Elisa Gremese, Barbara Tolusso, Paola Cattani, Clara Di Mario, Simona Marchetti, Stefano Alivernini, Maria Tredicine, Luca Petricca, Ivana Palucci, Chiara Camponeschi, Virginia Aragon, Andrea Gambotto, Francesco Ria, Gianfranco Ferraccioli
Background: Haemophilus parasuis ( Hps ; now Glaesserella parasuis ) is an infectious agent that causes severe arthritis in swines and shares sequence similarity with residues 261-273 of collagen type 2 (Coll261-273 ), a possible autoantigen in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Objectives/methods: We tested the presence of Hps sequencing 16S ribosomal RNA in crevicular fluid, synovial fluids, and tissues in patients with arthritis (RA and other peripheral arthritides) and in healthy controls. Moreover, we examined the cross-recognition of Hps by Coll261-273 -specific T cells in HLA-DRB1* 04pos RA patients, by T-cell receptor (TCR) beta chain spectratyping and T-cell phenotyping...
2021: Frontiers in Medicine