Fig 1.
Simplified schema of molecular mimicry.
1) Pathogens are recognized and presented by antigen-presenting cells to pathogen specific T cell; 2) Activation of T cell by recognition of pathogen antigen; 3) Recognition of self-antigen by pathogen activated autoreactive T cell; 4) Triggering of autoimmune process.
Fig 2.
Pipeline for identification of putative RA-triggering organisms together with the corresponding T cell epitopes.
Fig 3.
The distribution of all the significant BLASTp hits, together with the proteins they originate from, across Bacteria, Fungi, and Viruses (left); The distribution of all the significant BLASTp hits in the context of homologous antigens (the ones associated to the corresponding query experimental RA epitopes) presented for Bacteria, Fungi, and Viruses separately (right).
Table 1.
A comprehensive list of RA-triggering organisms obtained through presented analysis, comprising both the organisms previously related to RA (confirmed examples from the Literature) and novel candidates.
Fig 4.
A) Cluster representation for bacterial and fungal predicted T cell epitopes with significant sequence similarity to the Antigen 1, together with the corresponding sequence logos for the largest epitope clusters; B) Mapping of the T cell epitope clusters to the Antigen 1 together with its corresponding conserved domains positions.