Preparation and evaluation of latex agglutination technique for diagnosis and seroepidemiological studies of visceral leishmaniasis

in this study which has been carried out from 1996 until 1997 soluble latex agglutination antigen was prepared from L, donovani,sudan(s-1) by culturing in special media,harvesting,and later solubilizing by freezing and thawing.the antigen were futher prepared by high speed centrifugation.after measurement of the protein (lowry method) concentration of the antigen was set at 2.2 mg/ml,the antigen was coated in 2 to 1 ratio with latex beads (0.8 mm) and futher diluted 1:100.following preparation of latex agglutination antigen,210 human plasma samples and 57 dog plasma samples from Meshkin-Shahr district were tested by latex agglutination test(LAT),direct agglutination test (DAT) and indirect flourescence antibody test (IFAT).also 924 plasma samples from children >9 years old and 15 dog plasma samples from Kordan village,savegbolagh district,licated in Karaj in west of Tehran were tested by LAT,DAT and Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA).the results show that the sensitivity of the LAT in human samples was 98% and in dog samples 96%.concordance between LAT and DAT in human samples is 80% and in dog samples is 89.4%.