Microsporidia and Its Relation to Crohn's Disease. A Retrospective Study

Juan C. Andreu-Ballester mail,
Carlos Garcia-Ballesteros,
Victoria Amigo,
Ferran Ballester,
Rafael Gil-Borrás,
Ignacio Catalán-Serra,
Angela Magnet,
Soledad Fenoy,
Carmen del Aguila,
Jose Ferrando-Marco,
Carmen Cuéllar

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Abstract

Background

The cause of Crohn's Disease (CD) remains unknown. Recently a decrease in the global lymphocyte population in the peripheral blood of CD patients has been reported. This decrease was more evident in γδ T lymphocytes, especially γδ CD8+T subsets. Furthermore, a decrease of IL-7 was also observed in these patients. We propose the hypothesis that microsporidia, an obligate intracellular opportunistic parasite recently related to fungi, in CD patients can take advantage of the lymphocytes and IL-7 deficits to proliferate and to contribute to the pathophysiology of this disease.

Methods and Findings

In this case-control study, serum samples were collected from 36 CD patients and from 36 healthy individuals (controls), IgE and IgG anti-Encephalitozoon antibodies were determined by ELISA; and forty-four intestinal tissue samples were analyzed through real time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), twenty CD patients, nine with others diseases and 15 healthy subjects.
We observed that IgE anti-Encephalitozoon levels were significantly higher in patients with CD: 0.386(±0.256) vs control group, 0.201(±0.147), P<0 .001.="" anti-="" em="" however="" igg="">Encephalitozoon

values were significantly lower in CD patients: 0.361(±0.256) vs control group, 0.876(±0.380), P<0 .001.="" 6="" all="" and="" by="" cd="" control="" for="" group="" in="" microsporidia="" negative="" of="" p="" patients="" pcr.="" pcr="" positive="" real="" the="" time="" were="">

Conclusions

These results suggest that CD patients are a group at risk for microsporidiasis and, moreover that microsporidia may be involved as a possible etiologic factor of CD.

Citation: Andreu-Ballester JC, Garcia-Ballesteros C, Amigo V, Ballester F, Gil-Borrás R, et al. (2013) Microsporidia and Its Relation to Crohn's Disease. A Retrospective Study. PLoS ONE 8(4): e62107. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062107
Editor: Deyu Fang, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, United States of America
Received: January 14, 2013; Accepted: March 19, 2013; Published: April 18, 2013
Copyright: © 2013 Andreu-Ballester et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: The authors have no funding or support to report.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.