Do comparative immune responses to candidate arthritogenic bacteria confirm a dominant role for Klebsiella pneumonia in the pathogenesis of familial ankylosing spondylitis?
Our analysis of affected and unaffected family members in familial AS demonstrated no significant differences with respect to cellular or humoral immune responses to K. pneumoniae and three control microbes. In addition, K. pneumoniae did not exhibit a predominant immune response in affected individuals. Thus we find no supportive evidence to implicate a causal role for K. pneumoniae in familial AS.
This study suggests that TNFalpha is not a strong independent risk marker for MI, and is not associated with risk of stroke.