Mining the capacity of human-associated microorganisms to trigger rheumatoid arthritis-A systematic immunoinformatics analysis of T cell epitopes

PLoS One. 2021 Jun 29;16(6):e0253918. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253918. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Autoimmune diseases, often triggered by infection, affect ~5% of the worldwide population. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)-a painful condition characterized by the chronic inflammation of joints-comprises up to 20% of known autoimmune pathologies, with the tendency of increasing prevalence. Molecular mimicry is recognized as the leading mechanism underlying infection-mediated autoimmunity, which assumes sequence similarity between microbial and self-peptides driving the activation of autoreactive lymphocytes. T lymphocytes are leading immune cells in the RA-development. Therefore, deeper understanding of the capacity of microorganisms (both pathogens and commensals) to trigger autoreactive T cells is needed, calling for more systematic approaches. In the present study, we address this problem through a comprehensive immunoinformatics analysis of experimentally determined RA-related T cell epitopes against the proteomes of Bacteria, Fungi, and Viruses, to identify the scope of organisms providing homologous antigenic peptide determinants. By this, initial homology screening was complemented with de novo T cell epitope prediction and another round of homology search, to enable: i) the confirmation of homologous microbial peptides as T cell epitopes based on the predicted binding affinity to RA-related HLA polymorphisms; ii) sequence similarity inference for top de novo T cell epitope predictions to the RA-related autoantigens to reveal the robustness of RA-triggering capacity for identified (micro/myco)organisms. Our study reveals a much larger repertoire of candidate RA-triggering organisms, than previously recognized, providing insights into the underestimated role of Fungi in autoimmunity and the possibility of a more direct involvement of bacterial commensals in RA-pathology. Finally, our study pinpoints Endoplasmic reticulum chaperone BiP as the most potent (most likely mimicked) RA-related autoantigen, opening an avenue for identifying the most potent autoantigens in a variety of different autoimmune pathologies, with possible implications in the design of next-generation therapeutics aiming to induce self-tolerance by affecting highly reactive autoantigens.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arthritis, Rheumatoid / immunology*
  • Arthritis, Rheumatoid / microbiology
  • Autoantigens / genetics
  • Autoantigens / immunology
  • Autoimmune Diseases / immunology*
  • Autoimmune Diseases / microbiology
  • Autoimmune Diseases / pathology
  • Autoimmunity / genetics
  • Autoimmunity / immunology
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / genetics
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Leukocytes, Mononuclear / immunology*
  • Leukocytes, Mononuclear / microbiology
  • Male
  • T-Lymphocytes / immunology*
  • T-Lymphocytes / microbiology
  • T-Lymphocytes / pathology

Substances

  • Autoantigens
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte

Grants and funding

BBN author who received the Grant This work was supported by the grant of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia (Contract number: 451-03-9/2021-14/200178). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.