Connectivity patterns in tuberculosis and leprosy patients are indistinguishable from that of healthy donors

Connectivity, the self-defined interactions between antigen-recognising molecules in a network system can in part be assessed by measuring the reactivity of a given serum against an ordered set of immunoglobulin (Ig)G F(ab')2 fractions, separated by means of isoelectric focusing so that, the serum reactivity against the whole set of fractions defines a characteristic pattern of connectivity. Deviations from the normal condition (healthy donors) have so far been documented for two autoimmune diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and pemphigus vulgaris, as well as for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection. We tested here if bacterial infections lead to alterations in connectivity. In addition, we wanted to test if two antigenically related bacteria would produce similar or otherwise distinctive connectivity patterns. Connectivity analysis was applied on the sera from tuberculosis and leprosy patients and the sera from healthy donors were used as control. No statistically significant differences between the three groups studied were found. These results have implications for theories that set the origin of autoimmune diseases in microbial infections. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyze the connectivity status in bacterial infections.