Background: Scleroderma is a chronic systemic disorder that affects the connective tissues. It is characterized by several immune manifestations, inflammation, vascular damage, and fibrosis. Some of the viral infections with complex mechanisms are involved in the development and progression of many autoimmune diseases, such as scleroderma. The present study aimed to investigate the serological ...

In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals, higher levels of anti-cytomegalovirus (CMV) immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody have been associated with increased immune activation, increased HIV transmission, cardiovascular complications, and neurocognitive impairment. However, the mechanism of these observations is unknown. This analysis of 228 HIV-infected men found that higher CMV ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate avidity of IgG anti-beta 2-glycoprotein I antibodies (anti-beta2-GPI) in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in relation to thrombosis, and to demonstrate a possible affinity maturation of IgG anti-beta 2-GPI during the disease course. METHODS 64 sera from 32 patients (18 with primary or secondary APS, 14 with SLE without ...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) remains the most important pathogen following solid organ transplantation and is the major cause of recipient morbidity and mortality during the first 6 months posttransplantation. To prevent CMV infection and/or to prevent symptomatic CMV disease, immunoglobulin (Ig) G including hyperimmune CMV IgG are used alone or in combination with antiviral medications. The CMV IgG t...

The aim of this study was to discriminate between primary and secondary vaccine failure in children with mumps using IgG avidity testing. Thirty-nine serum samples from children with mumps, confirmed by specific IgM, were studied. The patients were grouped according to their immunization status. The secondary immune response was defined by IgG with an avidity index >32%. A secondary response in...

Toxocariasis is a zoonotic disease in that IgM titers can remain high for long periods making difficult to determine the stage of the disease. The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of indirect ELISA, associated with urea, to discriminate between the acute and chronic toxocariasis. IgG avidity was evaluated in 25 BALB/c mice experimentally infected with 1000 Toxocara canis eg...

The goal of this study was to investigate the importance of IgG avidity testing in newborns (NBs) diagnosed with early congenital toxoplasmosis. We collected samples from 88 puerperae infected by Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) and their NBs (48 acutely-infected puerperae (AIP) and 40 chronically-infected puerperae (CIP)), from two public maternity hospitals in Goiania city, Goias, Brazil, from 2...

Since its introduction in 1999, West Nile virus (WNV) infections have spread rapidly across the North American continent. Diagnosis of acute WNV infection by detection of WNV-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) is complicated by the persistence of detectable IgM for more than 1 year in some patients. IgG antibody avidity testing was assessed as a supplemental assay in the diagnosis of current infec...