RECURRENT INFECTIOUS-DISEASES IN HUMAN CD53 DEFICIENCY

We report a familiar syndrome of recurrent heterogeneous infectious di seases, caused by bacteria, fungi, and viruses,,which has as its only detectable defect the lack of CD53 antigen expression in neutrophils. All other assays ruled out known causes of recurrent infectious diseas es due to either leukocyte adhesion or phagocytosis defects. CD53 belo ngs to the transmembrane-4 superfamily of proteins, which are a novel group of membrane proteins implicated in growth regulation and cell mo tility and possibly cell adhesion. We postulate that defects in these membrane proteins can be clinically manifested as complex recurrent in fections.