Well this is interesting

[peglem]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F...pone.0006332#s3

 

If I'm understanding this right- they tested serum from kids with tics-no GAS infection, kids w/ GAS infection, and kids w/ neither of those, for a wide variety of antibodies to GAS antigens. What they found was a huge similarity between the tic & GAS kids, AND the tic kids had a higher and more robust response than the kids with current infection!

 

What do you think? Am i understanding this right?

[peglem]

Another thing I noticed, on all the sites that tell information about the ASO test, it says you should not eat for 6 hours prior to the test....something about Beta lipoprotein affecting results. Has anybody ever heard of this? Nobody has ever mentioned to me that this was supposed to be a fasting test!

[peglem]

Okay, an excerpt: Bolding mine

 

Two major conclusions can be derived from our protein array results. The first one is that the serological profiles observed in tic patients were similar to those observed in sera of patients who experienced a common acute pharyngitis. In fact our analysis established that 46 antigens, out of the 102 present on the chip, reacted against tic and pharyngitis patient sera in a similar manner, being each of them recognized by comparable percentages of sera from the two groups (Tables 1 and 2). Remarkably, the profiles of both sera groups were significantly different from those observed in no tic patients (Table 2 and Figure 2).

 

The second conclusion coming from the array results is that the IgG response of tic sera appeared to be overall quantitatively stronger than that observed in pharyngitis patients. In fact, when we took into account the frequencies of highly reacting antigens and sera (MFIs higher than 40,000), they appeared to be significantly higher in tic patients, compared to both pharyngitis and no tic patients (Figure 4B and 4C).

 

Overall, the results discussed so far demonstrated that a large number of GAS antigens eliciting an immune response in the course of a common acute pharyngitis were also recognized, and even more robustly, by tic sera. These data provide the first evidence that tic patients exhibit serological profiles typical of individuals who have mounted a broad, specific and strong immune response against Group A Streptococcus antigens, strengthening the relationship between tic disorder and GAS infection, so far based only on discordant epidemiological reports and few signs of infection [15].

 

The established association between tics and GAS infections raises the question of how and to what extent may the pathogen contribute to the onset or recurrence of this disorder. This is even more intriguing considering that the immune response against GAS antigens which we observed occurred in tic patients in the presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms but in the absence of overt GAS infection, as testified by the lack of clinical signs of pharyngitis and by the usual GAS carrier frequency observed in the tic patient population. Additionally, the fact that no major differences were observed between tic patients with low or high ASO titers further suggested that the serological profiles of these patients were not strictly correlated with the immune response against SLO, which is the parameter routinely used to confirm an ongoing or recent GAS-induced pharyngitis.

[momofgirls]

Huh??? Sorry peglem but I don't understand what they are saying. I want to understand. Please translate if you can.

[kim]

Peglem.

 

I posted the abstract to that study a while ago and found it pretty interesting at that time too! You are bolding everything that I found interesting reading through that too. It was great that you found the whole study! Melanie should take a copy of this to her appt.

[peglem]

Thanks, I was beginning to feel like I threw a party and nobody came.

So, they took serum (blood) from 3 groups:

1) kids with tics, but no strep infection, we'll call them T for tic.

2)kids with active strep infections,but no tics- S for strep

3) kids with no tics or strep infections- H for healthy

 

They tested the immune response of the serum to like 100 antigens (markers on the bacteria surface that cause the body to produce an immune response) of GAS (group A strep). The immune response of T & S were similar, except that the immune response of T was more pronounced than S. So the tic kids' serum had a strong immune response to strep antigens, even though they did not have strep infections...AND the response had no correlation to ASO titers which are being misinterpreted by many doctors, who try to use low ASO titers as proof that children have not had strep infections.

[momofgirls]

Thanks for the translation. It is very interesting and certainly points to an over reactive immune response.

 

 

 

 

Thanks, I was beginning to feel like I threw a party and nobody came.

So, they took serum (blood) from 3 groups:

1) kids with tics, but no strep infection, we'll call them T for tic.

2)kids with active strep infections,but no tics- S for strep

3) kids with no tics or strep infections- H for healthy

 

They tested the immune response of the serum to like 100 antigens (markers on the bacteria surface that cause the body to produce an immune response) of GAS (group A strep). The immune response of T & S were similar, except that the immune response of T was more pronounced than S. So the tic kids' serum had a strong immune response to strep antigens, even though they did not have strep infections...AND the response had no correlation to ASO titers which are being misinterpreted by many doctors, who try to use low ASO titers as proof that children have not had strep infections.

[ajcire]

LOL Peg, I had tried to come to your party earlier but I too was just not able to read through it. Your translation definitely helped!