diagnosis of toxoplasma gondii (t.gondii) infection is of great medical importance especially for pregnant women and immunosuppressed patients. numerous studies have shown that the recombinant production of several ttoxoplasma antigens, including dense granule antigens (gras) has a great potential as diagnostic reagents. previous studies reported expression of amino terminal gra8 protein in fus...

Prospective studies of antibodies to multiple Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) proteins and EBV neutralizing antibodies in the same individuals before, during, and after primary EBV infection have not been reported. We studied antibody responses to EBV in college students who acquired primary EBV infection during prospective surveillance and correlated the kinetics of antibody response with the severit...

A radioallergosorbent test (RAST) was developed to detect IgE antibodies against adult Onchocerca volvulus antigens coupled to CnBr-activated Sepharose. Twenty-four out of 25 (96%) onchocerciasis sera were reactive. The lower limit of sensitivity was estimated to be at approx. 3 ng/ml IgE antibodies. Tests of sera from patients with non-filarial helminth infections showed much less cross-reacti...

The immune response elicited by the rotavirus nonstructural protein NSP4 and its potential role in protection against rotavirus disease are not well understood. We investigated the serological response to NSP4 and its correlation with disease protection in sera from 110 children suffering acute diarrhea, associated or not with rotavirus, and from 26 children who were recipients of the rhesus ro...

 Nitrocellulose or PVDF? There are two different types of membranes (in 96-Well plate formats) that are used in ELISPOT applications: Nitrocellulose (NC) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). The reason that these are the predominant membrane types used in ELISPOT is based largely on their fortuitous suitability in non-ELISPOT applications rather than on the development of optimized assay substr...

In this study, we examined the immune response during gonococcal infection to the individual transferrin binding proteins by using a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Recombinant transferrin binding protein A (rTbpA) and rTbpB were purified under nondenaturing conditions for use as ELISA antigens. Sera and secretions from culture-positive individuals were analyzed for anti...

AIM to evaluate the diagnostic value of an interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) with enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) method, T-SPOT.TB, in the diagnosis of pleural TB using pleural fluid mononuclear cells (PFMC). METHODS forty-eight subjects, presumed to have pleural TB with exudative pleural effusion by Light's criteria, dominated by mononuclear cells, had their pleural fluid specimen te...

We evaluated an enzyme-linked immunospot assay for interferon-gamma (T SPOT-TB) for rapid diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) in a disease-endemic area. From January to June 2005, patients whose clinical symptoms and radiographic findings were compatible with TB were recruited, and a blood sample was obtained for T SPOT-TB assay within 7 days of microbiologic studies. Sixty-five patients were...

A 24-year-old male with a history of spondyloarthropathy presented with high fever, cervical lymphadenopathy and generalized maculopapular rash. He was treated with prednisolone for chronic uveitis before being switched to sulfasalazine 3 weeks prior to admission. Laboratory findings revealed marked leukocytosis with frequent atypical lymphocytes. Sulfasalazine was discontinued and the etiology...

Gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) release assays have been proven to be useful in the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Nevertheless, their specificity and sensitivity vary among the different populations studied. Here, we evaluate the value of an in-house IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay in the diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) in Shenzhen, China, where the pr...