Autoantibodies neutralizing type I IFNs underlie severe tick-borne encephalitis in ∼10% of patients
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://rupress.org/jem/article/221/10/e20240637/276989/Autoantibodies-neutralizing-type-I-IFNs-underlie |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1084/jem.20240637 |
| Keywords | Autoantibodies; Type I interferons; Tick-borne encephalitis; Severe disease; Immune response; Neurological infections; Viral encephalitis Patient outcomes; Autoimmunity; Infectious diseases |
| Attached files | |
| Description | Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus (TBEV) is transmitted to humans via tick bites. Infection is benign in >90% of the cases but can cause mild (<5%), moderate (<4%), or severe (<1%) encephalitis. We show here that ~10% of patients hospitalized for severe TBE in cohorts from Austria, Czech Republic, and France carry auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-?2, -ß, and/or -? at the onset of disease, contrasting with only ~1% of patients with moderate and mild TBE. These auto-Abs were found in two of eight patients who died and none of 13 with silent infection. The odds ratios (OR) for severe TBE in individuals with these auto-Abs relative to those without them in the general population were 4.9 (95% CI: 1.5–15.9, P < 0.0001) for the neutralization of only 100 pg/ml IFN-?2 and/or -?, and 20.8 (95% CI: 4.5–97.4, P < 0.0001) for the neutralization of 10 ng/ml IFN-?2 and -?. Auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs accounted for ~10% of severe TBE cases in these three European cohorts. |
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