Antibacterial antibody pattern in seronegative spondyloarthropathies (SNSA)

The occurrence of some anti-bacterial antibodies was studied in sera from 31 healthy donors (HD) and 101 patients with different rheumatic diseases. The cases investigated included 7 Psoriatic Arthritis (PA), 35 Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), 17 Undifferentiated Seronegative Spondyloarthritis (U-SNSA), 13 Behçet's syndrome, 18 Enteric Arthropathies (EA), 7 Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) and 4 Reiter's syndrome. A complement fixation test was carried out to detect the presence and to evaluate the titer of the specific antibodies against the relative bacterial antigens. The antigens used were prepared for the complement fixation test by Virion Laboratories: Yersinia Enterocolitica 0:3 type (YEC), Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis (YPT), Campylobacter Jejuni (CJ) and Campylobacter Intestinalis (CI), Chlamydia Trachomatis (CT). The results indicate a statistically significant difference between the HD group and the seronegative polyarthritis one (PA, U-SNSA, Behçet, EA, AS, Reiter as a whole) as far as antibody production against YEC, CI and YPT is concerned. On the contrary, a significant difference between the HD group and RA patients for specific anti bacterial antibodies was only found against CT. Further detailed analysis of the behavior of the antibody pattern in any disease groups was carried out to identify a possible specific and featured antibody profile for some given rheumatic disorder.