Ankylosing spondylitis and Klebsiella

Book excerpt: Ankylosing spondylitis and Klebsiella is a comprehensive and informative text on the cause of Ankylosing spondylitis. Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a condition which affects 20 million people worldwide and is likely caused or initiated by a bowel infection from Klebsiella bacteria. When a patient is infected by Klebsiella bacteria, his or her immune system will make antibodies against all the antigens or molecules found in the microbe. Because some of the bacterial antigens resemble self tissues, the anti-bacterial antibodies will attack not only the bacteria but also the self tissues such as the joints and the cells having the same HLA molecules, which is how the disease AS starts. This is the concept of molecular similarity or “molecular mimicry” which previously has been found to work in two other autoimmune diseases; rheumatic fever and rheumatoid arthritis. The first paper on this subject was published in 1976 and since then over 100 papers on rheumatological topics have been published, from Prof Ebringer’s group, at the Division of Life Sciences, King’s College in London, UK. The relevant information from these papers is extracted and presented in this book format making it accessible to health professionals, research institutions, pharmaceutical companies and universities and the general public.