Late onset of the serological response against the 18 kDa small heat shock protein of Mycobacterium ulcerans in children

Katharina Röltgen; Martin W Bratschi; Amanda Ross; Samuel Y Aboagye; Kobina A Ampah; Miriam Bolz; Arianna Andreoli; James Pritchard; Jacques C Minyem; Djeunga Noumen; Eric Koka; Alphonse Um Boock; Dorothy Yeboah-Manu; Gerd Pluschke

doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0002904

Late onset of the serological response against the 18 kDa small heat shock protein of Mycobacterium ulcerans in children

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2014 May 22;8(5):e2904. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0002904. eCollection 2014 May.

Affiliations

¹ Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Molecular Immunology, Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
² Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
³ Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Molecular Immunology, Basel, Switzerland; FAIRMED, Yaoundé, Cameron.
⁴ Bankim District Hospital, Bankim, Cameroon.
⁵ FAIRMED, Yaoundé, Cameron.

Abstract

A previous survey for clinical cases of Buruli ulcer (BU) in the Mapé Basin of Cameroon suggested that, compared to older age groups, very young children may be less exposed to Mycobacterium ulcerans. Here we determined serum IgG titres against the 18 kDa small heat shock protein (shsp) of M. ulcerans in 875 individuals living in the BU endemic river basins of the Mapé in Cameroon and the Densu in Ghana. While none of the sera collected from children below the age of four contained significant amounts of 18 kDa shsp specific antibodies, the majority of sera had high IgG titres against the Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1). These data suggest that exposure to M. ulcerans increases at an age which coincides with the children moving further away from their homes and having more intense environmental contact, including exposure to water bodies at the periphery of their villages.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Antibodies, Bacterial / blood*
Antigens, Bacterial / immunology*
Bacterial Proteins / immunology
Buruli Ulcer / blood
Buruli Ulcer / epidemiology
Buruli Ulcer / immunology*
Cameroon / epidemiology
Child
Child, Preschool
Endemic Diseases
Female
Ghana / epidemiology
Heat-Shock Proteins, Small / immunology*
Humans
Immunoglobulin G / blood
Immunoglobulin G / immunology
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Mycobacterium ulcerans / immunology*
Seroepidemiologic Studies
Young Adult

Substances

Antibodies, Bacterial
Antigens, Bacterial
Bacterial Proteins
Heat-Shock Proteins, Small
Immunoglobulin G

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Stop Buruli Initiative funded by the UBS-Optimus Foundation. Part of this work was funded by the Medicor Foundation (http://www.medicor.li/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.