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Irving Nachamkin, Huong Ung, Anthony P. Moran, Dale Yoo, Martina M. Prendergast, Mabel A. Nicholson, Kazim Sheikh, Tony Ho, Arthur K. Asbury, Guy M. McKhann, John W. Griffin, Ganglioside GM1 Mimicry in Campylobactev Strains from Sporadic Infections in the United States, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 179, Issue 5, May 1999, Pages 1183–1189, https://doi.org/10.1086/314725
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Abstract
To determine whether GM1-like epitopes in Campylobacter species are specific to O serotypes associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) or whether they are frequent among random Campylobacter isolates causing enteritis, 275 random enteritis-associated isolates of Campylobacter jejuni were analyzed. The isolates were collected in the United States using a cholera toxin—binding assay. Overall, 26.2% of the isolates were positive for the GM1-like epitope. Of the 36 different O serotypes in the sample, 21 (58.3%) contained no strains positive for GM1, whereas in 6 serotypes (16.7%), >50% of isolates were positive for GM1. GBS-associated serotypes were more likely to contain strains positive for GM1 than were non—GBS-associated serotypes (37.8% vs. 15.1%, P = .0116). The results suggest that humans are frequently exposed to strains exhibiting GM1-like mimicry and, while certain serotypes may be more likely to possess GM1-like epitopes, the presence of GM1-like epitopes on Campylobacter strains does not itself trigger GBS.
