ABC | Volume 110, Nº4, April 2018

Original Article Nascimento et al Vimentin and Anti Vimentin Antibodies in Chagas’ Disease Arq Bras Cardiol. 2018; 110(4):348-353 Figure 1 – Distribution of Vimentin or Trypanosoma cruzi antigen on control or infected cells and parasites. A and B) Uninfected LLC MK2 cells reacted to antivimentin abs(A) or anti-T.cruzi abs(B). C and D) T.cruzi infected LLC MK2 cells reacted to antivimentin abs(C) or anti-T.cruzi abs(D). E and F) T.cruzi promastigote forms from in vitro culture reacted to antivimentin abs (E) or anti-T.cruzi abs(F). Cells, infected cells or parasites forms were reacted withAnti Vimentin mAb or chronic infection chagasic serum and revealed with adequate conjugate (x1000) (see Methods). sera from patients with clinical active disease for any origin was in higher frequency than in patients without active disease or non-infected controls. Data were compared mainly with active or undetermined without clinical forms of Chagas' disease shows greater difference as expected with high statistical difference (p < 0.01) and also demonstrated by 95% confidence interval of the proportion The Table 1 Summarizes the data obtained in Figure 2 and provides ELISA positivity indexes with commercial Vimentin, showing that the percentage of positive sera from the groups of chronic patients with clinical manifestations of Chagas’ disease and the group of patients from the acute phase was higher than that observed in the indeterminate group of chagasic patients. The positivity index of sera from patients in the acute phase was 76.9% with 20 positive sera from the 26 analyzed. In the group of chronic digestive tract positive percentage was 70.5% with 12 positive in the 17 analyzed, the cardiac patients had a positive percentage of 87.9% with 29 positive sera from the 23 analyzed and in the group of indeterminate patients, the Index was 25%with 5 positive of the 20 analyzed. The positivity of the non-chagasic sera was 2.5% or only a positive serum in 40 analyzed. Discussion This intracytoplasmic infection resulted in altered expression of cell fibrillary proteins as vimentin, as we clearly show in immunofluorescence of infected cells. This altered vimentin production is devoid of association with the parasite, which has no reactivity with antivimentin antibodies in any form. Vimentin is important for specific virus entry, another possible cytoplasmic pathogen and are used by Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) for virus mounting inside the cells. 9 This intracytoplasmic infection resulted in altered expression of cell fibrillary proteins as vimentin, as we clearly show in immunofluorescence of infected cells. This altered 350