Immunogenic HLA-DR-presented-peptides Identified from Clinical Samples of Synovial Tissue/Fluid and Peripheral Blood from Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis or Lyme Arthritis

摘要

Lyme arthritis (LA) is caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. In some patients, chronic inflammation persists after three months of antibiotic treatment and apparent spirochetal killing and is called antibiotic-refractory LA. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease with chronic inflammation in synovial joints, similar to the synovial lesion in antibiotic-refractory LA. In previous studies, we used proteomics to identify HLA-DR-presented peptides in synovial tissue (ST) and immunoassays to determine the immunogenicity of the peptides. In the study reported herein, HLA-DR-presented peptides were purified from ST, synovial fluid mononuclear cells (SFMC), or peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients with LA or RA, and the novel peptides identified with LC-MS/MS were synthesized and utilized in immunological assays.