Furthermore, cell lysates of HBMECs were incubated with the beads prebound with GST-IbeA, and the western blot results showed that endogenous Caspr1 in HBMECs interacted with IbeA protein, but not with non-IbeA proteins such as OmpA (outer membrane protein A)29, another virulence factor involved in E. coli meningitis (Fig. 1c). Here, CNTNAP1 is linked to infectious meningitis.