C-reactive Protein is Essential for Innate Resistance to Pneumococcal Infection

Overview

Journal Immunology

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 2014 Mar 29

PMID 24673624

Citations 27

Authors

J Paul Simons

Jutta M Loeffler

Raya Al-Shawi

Stephan Ellmerich

Winston L Hutchinson

Glenys A Tennent

Aviva Petrie

John G Raynes

J Brian de Souza

Rachel A Lawrence

Kevin D Read

Mark B Pepys

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

No deficiency of human C-reactive protein (CRP), or even structural polymorphism of the protein, has yet been reported so its physiological role is not known. Here we show for the first time that CRP-deficient mice are remarkably susceptible to Streptococcus pneumoniae infection and are protected by reconstitution with isolated pure human CRP, or by anti-pneumococcal antibodies. Autologous mouse CRP is evidently essential for innate resistance to pneumococcal infection before antibodies are produced. Our findings are consistent with the significant association between clinical pneumococcal infection and non-coding human CRP gene polymorphisms which affect CRP expression. Deficiency or loss of function variation in CRP may therefore be lethal at the first early-life encounter with this ubiquitous virulent pathogen, explaining the invariant presence and structure of CRP in human adults.

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