Molecular mimicry between Larrea divaricata Cav. plant and a reference strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

SASSO, CORINA VERÓNICA; FERRAMOLA, FLORENCIA FÁTIMA; MATTAR DOMÍNGUEZ, MARÍA AÍDA; DÁVILA, SILVIA DEL VALLE

MICROBIAL PATHOGENESIS

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2020 vol. 138

0882-4010

Currently, the world health sector faces a big problem due to the increase of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics. In 2017, the World Health Organization reported a list of resistant bacteria, among which Pseudomonasaeruginosa was present. This opportunistic pathogen is associated to nosocomial infections, and no effective vaccines against this bacterium have been found. Larrea divaricata Cav. (jarilla) is a shrub highly distributed in America and widely used in folk medicine. In our laboratory, cross-reactivity of antibodies obtained from the recognition of jarilla proteins against proteins from gram-negative bacteria has been demonstrated. The objective of this study was to study the cross-reactivity of anti-L. divaricata antibodies with P. aeruginosa extracellular proteins in order to find an innocuous prophylactic therapy against this nosocomial pathogen. We observed that antibodies generated by proteins from jarilla crude extract recognized antigenic determinantspresent in extracellular proteins of P. aeruginosa. However, further studies are needed to investigate the neutralizing capacity of these antibodies on the specific enzymatic proteins involved in the pathogenicity of this bacterium.