Lipopolysaccharides of a Campylobacter coli isolate from a patient with Guillain-Barré syndrome display ganglioside mimicry.

Campylobacter coli was isolated from a patient with severe, axonal type Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). The patient's serum was tested by ELISA for glycolipid antibodies and showed a high titer of IgG antibodies to asialo-GM1 (GA1) and GD3. Campylobacter coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was extracted and analyzed by ELISA, immunoblot binding and blocking studies, and found to avidly bind cholera toxin and peanut agglutinin. The LPS from the patient's isolate also induced anti-GA1 antibodies in a rat model. These findings suggest that the LPS from this bacterial isolate contains a ganglioside-like epitope, which most likely resembles GA1. Thus, it appears that ganglioside cross-reactivity is not unique to Campylobacter jejuni and seems to occur in all bacterial isolates from GBS cases so far analyzed.