eosinophils accumulate in vivo, although a tissue reaction to administered antigen has been shown to be a prerequisite for the response. The present experiments aim to understand the significance of the tissue reaction to parasitic larvae in the chain of events leading to eosinophilia. Trichinella spiralis larvae were injected intraperitoneally in rats, and the peritoneal exudate was examined a...

In this paper, a serological assay for the detection of antibodies to Capillaria hepatica, a zoonotic parasite, is described. In the past, the only way of detecting Capillaria hepatica was to perform a liver biopsy. The indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) assay, based on liver sections of naturally infected mice and human serum samples, is suitable for detecting early stages of human infections a...

Congenital transmission of Toxoplasma gondii occurs mainly when a mother acquires the infection for the first time during pregnancy. It was recently shown that although early treatment of the primary infection during pregnancy has little or no impact on the fetomaternal transmission rate, it does reduce the incidence of sequelae in infected infants. Seroconversion is defined by the appearance o...

Anti-human cytomegalovirus (CMV) monoclonal antibody (MAb) F6b produced by clone 95/12 was used for the rapid diagnosis (16 to 24 h) of CMV isolates in 308 clinical specimens and compared with classic isolation. MAb F6b gave 100% correlation with isolation. When this MAb was used for direct diagnosis with 212 urine and bronchoalveolar specimens, detection of CMV varied from 50 to 75% compared w...

A fluorescein-conjugated murine monoclonal antibody (MAb) reactive with cytomegalovirus (CMV) was evaluated for the detection of CMV in centrifugation culture. Of 188 specimens, 90 were positive for CMV in centrifugation culture. The fluorescein-conjugated MAb detected CMV in 86 of 90 (95%) specimens at 16 h postinoculation, and 88 of 90 (98%) were positive at 36 h. The fluorescein-conjugated M...

In 1991 and 1992, a prenatal screening of Trypanosoma cruzi infection was carried out using ELISA and indirect immunofluorescence techniques. A total of 840 blood samples from pregnant women, obtained at the Maternity Ward of the Hospital de Clínicas, National University of Asunción (Asunción, Paraguay), and 1,022 samples from the Regional Hospital of the San Pedro Department of Paraguay were e...

One hundred and seventy-five human sera were tested for the presence of type-specific antibodies against L pneumophila serogroups 1 to 6 and the Leiden-1 strain by means of an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and compared with the results obtained by the indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA). A high correlation (correlation coefficient 0.92) between both methods was found. No consist...