Human Seroreactivity to Secreted Molecules of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis

Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is an infectious agent that occurs in small ruminants causing caseous lymphadenitis, and more rarely in humans causing lymphadenitis and pneumonia. The breeding small ruminants have great economic importance in Brazil. Rural farm workers and veterinary students who acquired this disease suffered from weakening symptoms for weeks, and the identification of the etiological agent was time-consuming and complex. Due to the low prevalence of case records, there is probably no available commercial diagnostic kit for C. pseudotuberculosis infection in humans. This study aimed to describe human seroreactivity to secreted antigens from C. pseudotuberculosis. Reactivity of serum from farm workers (n = 14), individuals who work with the bacillus at laboratory (n = 8) or individuals without contact (n = 25) was tested with secreted proteins from PAT10 strain of C. pseudotuberculosis by Western blotting. Samples of all (100%) farm workers showed reactivity to 31 kDa, 71 kDa and 164 kDa proteins, while laboratory workers showed 87.5%, 62.5 % and 37.5%, and no-contact 20%, 0% and 16%, respectively. All sera recognized the 275 kDa protein. Our data suggest that C. pseudotuberculosis secreted proteins are antigenic in humans and the recognition profiles allowed the identification of individuals with and without prior contact with this bacillus. This is the first paper which describes human reactivity to C. pseudotuberculosis in serum samples of workers in Brazil.