Autoantibodies in Chagas' heart disease: possible markers of severe Chagas' heart complaint

Early occurrence of anti-muscarinic autoantibodies and abnormal vagal modulation in Chagas disease

“…The presence of this correlation corroborates the hypothesis that autoimmune mechanisms may have a causal role in the autonomic dysfunction observed in some Chagas disease patients [5,21,22], even in the absence of advanced cardiac disease. Goin et al [21] studying asymptomatic Chagas disease patients with normal ECG and chest X-ray observed also an association between the occurrence of abnormal tests of autonomic function and the presence of cholinergic antibody activity in the sera, a finding that was confirmed in a subsequent study [5].…”

Neuropathy of Gastrointestinal Chagas’ Disease: Immune Response to Myelin Antigens

“…T. cruzi infected mice develop severe cardiomyopathy and produce antibodies that recognize the antigens present in a heart extract [26] . In human studies, the presence of autoantibodies to cardiac myosin has also been demonstrated in the sera of patients with Chagas' disease [26,27] . A cross-reactivity between antibodies from chagasic patients and nerve tissue has been described as well [28] .…”

Trypanosoma cruzi-Induced Molecular Mimicry and Chagas’ Disease

“…Anti-ribosomal P protein antibodies were detected in the serum of chagasic patients and their titer associated with the degree of myocarditis, suggesting a correlation between the appearance of these antibodies and heart pathology (Levin et al 1990(Levin et al , 1989Skeiky et al 1992). By screening a T. cruzi expression cDNA library with such sera, some DNA clones were identified.…”