ECA-immunogenicity of Proteus mirabilis strains

Introduction Bacteria of the genus Proteus are opportunistic pathogens and cause mainly urinary tract infections. They also play a role in the pathogenesis of reactive arthritis (RA). Patients suffering from Yersinia-triggered RA often carry high titers of antibodies specific to enterobacterial common antigen (ECA). The immunogenicity of ECA has not received much attention thus far and studies have focused mainly on the ECA of Escherichia coli and Yersinia enterocolitica. In this paper the ECA-immunogenicity of Proteus mirabilis is elucidated using two wild-type strains (S1959 and O28) as well as their rough (R) derivative strains R110/1959, which expresses lipopolysaccharide (LPS) with a full core, and R4/O28, which expresses LPS with only an inner core.