Coxiella burnetii is the causative agent of acute and
chronic Q fever in humans. Although the isolates studied so far showed a difference in virulence potential between those causing the two forms of the disease, implying a difference in their proteomic profile, the methods used so far to diagnose the two forms of the disease do not provide sufficient discriminatory capability, and human
infections may be often misdiagnosed. The aim of the current study was to identify the outer membrane Com1 (CBU_1910) as a candidate
protein for serodiagnostics of
Q fever. The
protein was cloned, expressed, purified, and used as an
antigen in ELISA. The
protein was then used for the screening of sera from patients suffering from
chronic Q fever endocarditis, patients whose samples were negative for phase I
immunoglobulin G (
IgG), patients for whom at least one sample was positive for phase I
IgG, and patients suffering from any kind of rheumatoid disease. Blood donors were used as the control group. Following statistical analysis, 92.4% (122/132) of the samples tested agreed with the negative clinical diagnosis, and 72.2% (26/36) agreed with the positive clinical diagnosis. Moreover, a significant correlation to the presence of the disease (p = 0.00) was calculated. The results support the idea that a Com1
antigen-based serodiagnostic test may be useful for differential diagnosis of
chronic Q fever. Further studies are required to compare more immunogenic
proteins of the bacterium against samples originating from patients suffering from different forms of the disease.