Molecular Diagnosis of Chlamydia pneumoniae in Coronary Heart disease Patients in Diyala City

Abstract

Chlamydia pneumoniae has been highly associated with & implicated in the procoagulatory & inflammatory component of atherosclerosis. The present study has been designed to detect C. pneumoniae DNA and C. pneumoniae IgG and IgM antibodies among Iraqi patients with coronary heart disease and the association between the bacterium and risk factors. The study involved 71 patients diagnosed with (angina, myocardial infarction and atherosclerosis) and 30 healthy controls. Out from 71 patients, 28.2% were smoking, 26.8% were diabetic and  45.1% were hypertensive. Detection of anti- C. pneumoniae IgM and IgG antibodies was done by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent assay. C. pneumoniae IgG antibodies were detected in 57.7% of patients and 14.6%  of healthy controls, while seropositivity of C.pneumoniae IgM antibodies were detected in 9.9% patients. DNA were extracted from blood samples and PCR was used for detection of the C. pneumoniae genes. Thirty  DNA samples of the coronary heart disease patients were amplified by PCR using three genes 16SrRNA with 194bp and outer membrane protein (OMP) and were included  as internal with 239bp and outer with 499bp  both specific gene for C. pneumoniae. The results of all genes revealed that 10 patients (33.3%) were positive , while it was negative for all control group.