to develop an elisa technique for the detection of antibodies against babesia ovis, the infectederythrocytes were lysed and the supernatant soluble antigen, after sonication and ultracentrifugation of thelysate was used as antigen. optimal dilution of the antigen was determined by checkerboard titrations, usingpositive and negative control sera. a correlation of 85% was observed between the res...

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is the most common form of chronic infection of the central nervous system. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the general diagnostic outlook is discouraging. Specifically, there is no generally accepted early confirmative diagnosis protocol available for TBM. Various Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens are now recognized as potential markers for diagnosis of TBM...

Leila de Mendonga Lima, Jean Content, Hugo van Heuverswyn and Wim Degrave* Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Laboratory of Hanseniasis, Department of Tropical Medicine, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, FIOCRUZ, Av. Brasil 4365, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP 21045, Brasil, lnstitut Pasteur du Brabant, Department of Virology, B-1180 Brussels and lnnogenetics, Industriepark Zwijnaarde 7, box 4...

Conflicting reports on the heat resistance of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis prompted an examination of the effect of culture medium on this property of the organism. M. paratuberculosis was cultured in three types of media (fatty acid-containing medium 7H9-OADC (oleic acid-albumin-dextrose-catalase supplement) and glycerol-containing media WR-GD and 7H9-GD [glycerol-dextrose supplement]) at pH...

The components of the fibronectin-binding antigen 85 complex (85A, 85B, and 85C) and the related protein MPB/MPT51 are major secreted proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis BCG. The fbpA, fbpC, and mpt51 genes encoding 85A, 85C, and MPT51, respectively, were isolated from Mycobacterium avium and sequenced in this study. The structures of these genes, and that of the fbpB...

Two recombinant antigens and a crude bacterial antigen of a wild M. tuberculosis strain were used to detect specific IgG antibodies in sera from 52 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, confirmed by an acid-fast smear and serum culture of these patients and that of 25 contacts. The patients were not infected with HIV. We evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of ELISA, based on the recombina...