Herpesviruses, autoimmunity and epilepsy: Peptide sharing and potential cross-reactivity with human synaptic proteins

Abstract

Aggregation of immuno-proteomic data reveals that i) herpesviruses and synaptic proteins -in particular Synapsin-1 and Bassoon - share a large number of hexapeptides that also recur in hundreds of epitopes experimentally validated as immunopositive in the human host, and ii) the shared peptides are also spread among human epilepsy-related proteins. The data indicate that cross-reactive processes may be associated with pathogenetic mechanisms in epilepsy, thus suggesting a role of autoimmunity in etiopathology of epilepsies after herpesvirus-infections.

Keywords: Active zone; Autoimmunity; Bassoon; Infections; Seizure; Synapsin-1; Synaptic proteins.