Disease relevance of Q Fever

• Treatment of Q fever endocarditis: comparison of 2 regimens containing doxycycline and ofloxacin or hydroxychloroquine [1].
• The lipopolysaccharide previously isolated from the rickettsial agent of Q fever, Coxiella burneti, phase I, has been further characterized [2].
• They are reliable alternatives to tetracycline therapy for Mediterranean spotted fever, scrub typhus and acute Q fever [3].
• There was no evidence for Q fever, Hodgkin's disease, or allopurinol-induced hepatitis, which are recognized causes of hepatic fibrin-ring granulomas [4].
• Microbiological testing included standard culture, Q fever serology, cell culture, and polymerase chain reaction amplification of C. burnetii DNA from biopsy specimens of aneurysms or vascular grafts [5].

High impact information on Q Fever

• Sera from a blood-donor bank (n = 925) and from HIV-positive individuals selected at random, irrespective of clinical or immunological status (n = 500) were tested for Q fever [6].
• The incidence rate of acute Q fever detection at the NRC was 0.58 per 100,000 inhabitants over the 9-year period [7].
• Defective phagosome maturation and impaired C. burnetii killing were induced by adding interleukin (IL)-10 to monocytes from convalescent patients and were restored by IL-10 neutralization in chronic Q fever in evolution [8].
• The recommended treatment for Q fever endocarditis is a combination of doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine [9].
• Coxiella burnetii, the agent of Q fever, enters human monocytes through alpha(v)beta(3) integrin and survives inside host cells [10].

Chemical compound and disease context of Q Fever

• BACKGROUND: Whether Q fever responds better to doxycycline or erythromycin is unknown [11].
• In vivo response of acute Q fever to erythromycin [12].
• In light of the fact that the concentrations of antibiotics used fall within physiological ranges used in humans, ofloxacin and pefloxacin may be useful in the clinical management of chronic Q fever, for which, to date, results have been poor [13].
• Plasma from four patients with Q fever and antibodies to cardiolipin (aCL) was purified by affinity chromatography in a cardiolipin column and tested against all phospholipids [14].
• Q Fever pneumonia: are clarithromycin and moxifloxacin alternative treatments only [15]?

Biological context of Q Fever

• These experiments provide a basis for explaining the increased hepatic protein synthesis during Q fever and demonstrate, perhaps for the first time, the phosphorylation of ribosomal protein in response to lipopolysaccharide [16].

Anatomical context of Q Fever

• It has been found in the liver and bone marrow of patients with Q fever, and occasionally with visceral leishmaniasis, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, Staphylococcus epidermidis infections, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and hypersensitivity to allopurinol [17].
• Assays of 104 sera from patients with Q-fever (including index cases) using immunofluorescence for smooth muscle antibodies, microagglutination for cold agglutinins [18].

Gene context of Q Fever

• Taken together, our results suggest that the release of IL-10 and TGF-beta is upregulated in Q fever endocarditis [19].
• IL-10 was markedly released by unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients with Q fever endocarditis [19].
• These results indicate that the modulation of TNF-R75 is a critical feature of the pathophysiology of Q fever endocarditis [20].
• IL-1 receptor antagonist and TNF receptor type II were significantly increased in patients with acute Q fever, suggesting a shift of cytokine balance towards cytokine antagonists [21].
• These results suggest that IL-4 enables monocytes to support C. burnetii replication and a Th2 polarization of immune response that may interfere with immune control of Q fever [22].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Q Fever

• METHODS: The efficacy of doxycycline and erythromycin in the treatment of pneumonia due to Q fever was assessed in a prospective, randomised, double blind study of 82 patients with a diagnosis of pneumonia and features suggestive of Q fever infection; 48 proved to have Q fever [11].
• Three sera from the confirmed Q fever cases and one of the sera from pneumonia patients were IgM and/or IgG positive by both ELISA and WBA [23].
• Chronic Q fever was confirmed by serodiagnosis and livedo regressed totally with doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine [24].
• In animals, the immunosuppression caused by either cortisone or X-irradiation reactivates Q fever [25].
• An increase in both IgM and IgA was observed in paired sera from all 19 patients with acute Q fever, and both IgM and IgA levels showed good correlation with complement fixation test titers [26].

References