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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

A Protein Microarray Assay for Serological Determination of Antigen-specific Antibody Responses Following Clostridium difficile Infection
Published on: June 15, 2018
Systemic antibody responses against bacterial and viral antigens associate with fatigue in patients with inflammatory
Maximilian G Griesbaum1, Thomas Vogl2, Marijn C Visschedijk1
1Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Abstract:
Fatigue is common and debilitating in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but its etiology remains unclear. Phage-display immunoprecipitation sequencing (PhIP-Seq) was used to profile systemic antibodies against 344,000 rationally selected peptide antigens in 327 patients with IBD, assessing associations with fatigue severity across quartiles and in a remission sub-cohort. No individual antibody remained significant after multiple testing correction. However, aggregation-based analyses identified recurring differences involving Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), influenza virus, and Staphylococcus antigens. Higher fatigue was associated with lower responses to EBV early antigen protein D (EA-D) and higher responses to EBV nuclear antigens (EBNA-1, EBNA-3), as well as influenza M1/M2 proteins and Staphylococcus clumping factor B. These patterns were not statistically robust and may reflect random variation or disease-/exposure-related factors. Given broader evidence linking EBV-related immune responses to immune-mediated diseases, these observations warrant further investigation. Overall, this study illustrates challenges of linking high-dimensional immune data to complex clinical symptoms.
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