Epidemiological survey of serum titers from adults against various Gram-negative bacterial V-antigens

PLoS One. 2020 Mar 10;15(3):e0220924. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220924. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The V-antigen, a virulence-associated protein, was first identified in Yersinia pestis more than half a century ago. Since then, other V-antigen homologs and orthologs have been discovered and are now considered as critical molecules for the toxic effects mediated by the type III secretion system during infections caused by various pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria. After purifying recombinant V-antigen proteins, including PcrV from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, LcrV from Yersinia, LssV from Photorhabdus luminescens, AcrV from Aeromonas salmonicida, and VcrV from Vibrio parahaemolyticus, we developed an enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay to measure titers against each V-antigen in sera collected from 186 adult volunteers. Different titer-specific correlation levels were determined for the five V-antigens. The anti-LcrV and anti-AcrV titers shared the highest correlation with each other with a correlation coefficient of 0.84. The next highest correlation coefficient was between anti-AcrV and anti-VcrV titers at 0.79, while the lowest correlation was found between anti-LcrV and anti-VcrV titers, which were still higher than 0.7. Sera from mice immunized with one of the five recombinant V-antigens displayed cross-antigenicity with some of the other four V-antigens, supporting the results from the human sera. Thus, the serum anti-V-antigen titer measurement system may be used for epidemiological investigations of various pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Age Distribution
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Antigens, Bacterial / blood*
  • Antigens, Bacterial / chemistry
  • Cross Reactions / immunology
  • Female
  • Gram-Negative Bacteria / immunology*
  • Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections / blood*
  • Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections / immunology*
  • Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections / microbiology
  • Humans
  • Immunization
  • Male
  • Mice, Inbred ICR
  • Middle Aged
  • Models, Molecular
  • Phylogeny
  • Surveys and Questionnaires*
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Antigens, Bacterial

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI No. 24390403, 26670791, 18H02905, 20816384, and 18K16521) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan to Teiji Sawa.