Genome‐wide profiling of humoral immune response to Coxiella burnetii infection by protein microarray

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Abstract
Comprehensive evaluation of the humoral immune response to Coxiella burnetii may identify highly needed diagnostic antigens and potential subunit vaccine candidates. Here we report the construction of a protein microarray containing 1901 C. burnetii ORFs (84% of the entire proteome). This array was probed with Q-fever patient sera and naïve controls in order to discover C. burnetii-specific seroreactive antigens. Among the 21 seroreactive antigens identified, 13 were significantly more reactive in Q-fever cases than naïve controls. The remaining eight antigens were cross-reactive in both C. burnetii infected and naïve patient sera. An additional 64 antigens displayed variable seroreactivity in Q-fever patients, and underscore the diversity of the humoral immune response to C. burnetii. Nine of the differentially reactive antigens were validated on an alternative immunostrip platform, demonstrating proof-of-concept development of a consistent, safe, and inexpensive diagnostic assay alternative. Furthermore, we report here the identification of several new diagnostic antigens and potential subunit vaccine candidates for the highly infectious category B alphaproteobacteria, C. burnetii.