
L'articolo “Association of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis with Multiple Sclerosis in Sardinian Patients” (PLoS ONE, 13 aprile 2011) è firmato da: Davide Cossu (Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia e Virologia, Università di Sassari), Eleonora Cocco (Centro Sclerosi Multipla, Dipartimento di Scienze Cardiovascolari e Neurologiche, Università di Cagliari), Daniela Paccagnini (Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia e Virologia, Università di Sassari), Speranza Masala (Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia e Virologia, Università di Sassari), Niyaz Ahmed (Pathogen Biology Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India, and Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), Jessica Frau (Centro Sclerosi Multipla, Dipartimento di Scienze Cardiovascolari e Neurologiche, Università di Cagliari), Maria Giovanna Marrosu (Centro Sclerosi Multipla, Dipartimento di Scienze Cardiovascolari e Neurologiche, Università di Cagliari), Leonardo A. Sechi (Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sezione di Microbiologia e Virologia, Università di Sassari).
Andrea Mameli per www.linguaggiomacchina.it

Evaluation of serum samples from 50 MS patients (right column) and 56 healthy controls (left column) against MAP2694 recombinant protein by the AUC-ROC test. The horizontal blue line highlights the cut-off value(s) which gives a specificity of 25%. Data are presented as OD values observed in ELISA. Area under curve (AUC) = 0,686; P = 0,0003.
Abstract
Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection is highly spread in the ruminant herds of Sardinia, in the Western Mediterranean. The objective of this study was to investigate prevalence of MAP infection in association with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) using clinical specimen from patients and controls. We analyzed samples for the presence of MAP specific DNA and to demonstrate humoral response to a MAP protein (MAP2694), a predicted homologue of the T-cell receptor gamma-chain/complement component 1 of the host. We found presence of MAP DNA in 42% of the MS patients and an extremely significant humoral immune response revealed by the MS patients against the MAP protein. In our opinion, this is the first report that significantly associates MAP infection with MS. Further studies will be required to confirm if MAP could be one of the triggers of MS, according to the molecular mimicry theory, in susceptible (and genetically at risk) individuals.