Is there a role for <i>Mycobacterium avium</i> subspecies <i>paratuberculosis</i> in Parkinson's disease?

Abstract

In Parkinson's disease (PD) ZnT proteins play an important role. Zinc is a co-factor of numerous enzymes and stabilizes the tertiary structure of several proteins. Nothing is known about previous infections mediated by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). We evaluated if a previous infection with MAP could induce the production of antibodies that cross-reacted with the Znt homologous antigenic peptides associated to Parkinson. The humoral response toward MAP3865c peptides, ZnT3 and ZnT10 was evaluated. The hypothesis of cross-reactivity needs to be confirmed; we have observed the presence of MAP in PD patients by PCR, positivity to MAP3865c peptides, therefore MAP infection but not cross-reaction with human homologous Znt proteins