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Updated: May 5, 2026
A Simple Approach to Induce Experimental Autoimmune Neuritis in C57BL/6 Mice for Functional and Neuropathological Assessments
Published on: November 9, 2017
[Molecular mimicry between Plasmodium sp and Guillain-Barre syndrome antigens]
Yuliana Marcela Emiliani-Navarro1,2, D Vega1, G Muzi1
1Facultad de Salud, Grupo de Investigación Nuñista de Medicina (GINUMED), Corporación Universitaria Rafael Núñez, Colombia.
Objective:
Analyze the molecular mimicry between Plasmodium spp. and autoantigens associated with GBS, identifying possible antigenic epitopes.
Methods:
PSI-Blast, Praline, Emboss, Protein Data Bank, Swiss Model Server, AlphaFold 2, Ellipro and PyMol 2.3 were used to search for homologies, perform alignments, obtain protein structures, and predict epitopes.
Results:
17 autoantigens and seven immunological targets of the peripheral nervous system were included, identifying 72 possible epitopes associated with GBS. From the proteome of Plasmodium spp. (298 proteins), only two showed similarities close to 30% with TRIM21 and BACE1, generating seven possible epitopes.
Conclusion:
No significant homologies were observed between the proteome of GBS and Plasmodium spp. The exploration of other mechanisms such as immune-mediated capillary damage, Epitope Spreading or Bystander Activation is suggested to explain the mentioned association. These findings underscore the need to clarify the etiology of autoimmune diseases and the role of pathogens. The need for experimental studies to validate these results is emphasized.
