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Complement activation in acute Lyme neuroborreliosis and in Post-Treatment Lyme Disease.

Posted by Henningsson on 08 Apr 2011 at 08:32 GMT

We read with interest the article concerning distinct differences in cerebrospinal fluid proteomes between patients with Neurologic Post Treatment Lyme disease syndrome and patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
We are pleased that the authors have been able to verify our C1q results in Lyme neuroborreliosis patients published in 2007 (Henningsson AJ, Ernerudh
J, Sandholm K et al. Complement activation in Lyme neuroborreliosis - Increased levels of C1q and C3a in cerebrospinal fluid indicate complement activation in the CNS. J Neuroimmunol 2007;183:200-7). While our samples were mostly taken during the acute phase of the disease, samples in the paper by Schutzer et al. were taken long (at least four months) after the acute phase, suggesting that changes in complement levels either may denote earlier infection or perhaps indicate ongoing aberrant inflammation. Further studies on the role of the complement system in Lyme neuroborreliosis pathogenesis are indeed needed.

AJ Henningsson
J Ernerudh
D Nyman
K Nilsson Ekdahl

No competing interests declared.