DETECTION AND PRELIMINARY CHARACTERIZATION OF CIRCULATING IMMUNE-COMPLEXES IN PATIENTS WITH LYME-DISEASE

To investigate whether circulating immune complexes can be used as a d isease marker for assessment of the activity of Lyme disease and for m onitoring patients' response to treatment, we tested 104 sera from pat ients with different stages of Lyme disease using the C1q enzyme-linke d immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and a modified Raji cell test. Among 62 sera of patients with clinically active disease 27 sera (43.5%) reacte d positively in the C1q-ELISA and 21 sera (33.9%) positively in the Ra ji cell test. In contrast, serum circulating immune complexes were fou nd in less than 10% of 42 sera after antibiotic treatment. Similar res ults were obtained by both tests in 35 cerebrospinal fluid samples fro m patients with neuroborreliosis. Most importantly, dot blot analysis revealed the presence of both Borrelia burgdorferi-specific antigen(s) and host-derived components in the isolated immune complexes from ser um samples of patients with active Lyme disease. These results indicat e that detection of circulating immune complexes may be an useful para meter for judging the activity of Lyme disease. Moreover, preliminary characterization of spirochete-specific immune complexes implies new p athophysiological aspects of Lyme disease.