Immunoassay to categorize chlamydial inflammatory disease in women to develop biomarker from peptide derived stimulant and its response to cytokine

Chlamydia trachomatis infection in women can result in serious sequelae such as pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Previous research has suggested that peptide epitopes from HtrA and HSP60 are potential biomarkers for immune cell reactions. Thus, in this study we tested the hypothesis that these peptides could be used for future development of an immunoassay to detect at-risk women of pathology by a profile of the cytokine response. Our findings indicate that some chlamydial peptide antigens stimulated cervical mononuclear cell production of IL-6 and IFN-y resulting from cervical cell proliferation from women with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and/or cervicitis to a greater extent than that observed in negative control cohorts. Proliferative response of cervical cells induced by peptide antigens strongly reduces IL-10 concentration. We evaluated the suitability of different pairs of peptide antigens for the predictive value of chlamydial infection based on the cytokine induction. Whilst the cytokine response was not statistically significant, the data suggests that an immunoassay may be possible to develop in future for early detection of serious chlamydial infection sequelae.