YONG-LONG Li1, WENQI
Liu1 and Andreas RUPPEL2
1Department of
Parasitology, Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, P. R. China
2 Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public
Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Serodiagnostic techniques used most
widely to detect parasitic infections include enzyme-linked immunol
assays, immunofluorescent and haemagglutination tests. The detection
of circulating parasite antigen(s) opens the possibility to differenciate
between actual and past infections. We used a monoclonal antibody
(H226) against schistosome 31/32 kD antigens (Ruppel et al., 1987)
to develop a sandwich-ELISA, which is able to detect circulating
schistosome antigen in sera of patients infected with Schistosoma
japonicum, S. mansoni, S. haematobium or S. intercalatum
(Li et al. 1996). This test has shown that the epitope
corresponding to H226 circulates in patient serum and is highly
specific for schistosomes. Using the hybridoma cells, which secrete
H226, we have now developed a novel serodiagnostic test, which
is based on the agglutination of hybridoma cells. In the presence
of specific antigen, agglutination of the fixed and stained cells
occurs and can be visualized in analogy to traditional erythrocyte
agglutination. The circulating antigen, which can be detected
by the test, appeared to be relational with the stages and dosages
of infection in the mice. The sensitivity of this test was high
with acute schistosomiasis japonica (97%, n = 32) and moderate
with chronic cases (75%, n = 57). No positive reactions were obtained
with healthy persons (n = 78) or patients infected with other
parasites (Clonorchis sinensis, n = 20; Paragonimus
westermani, n =20; Plasmodium vivax, n = 10) or suffering
from lupus erythomatodus (n = 5) or mononucleosis (n = 10). The
test procedure may become useful to diagnose also other infections.
Acknowledgements:
Prof. Michael Kirschfink (Dept. of Immunology at Heidelberg University)
kindly provided the sera from healthy Germans and lupus erythomatodus
patients and helped with valuable discussions. This work was supported
by the Ministry of Science and Art Baden-Württemberg (Germany),
by the German Academic Exchange Council (DAAD), by Science &
Technology Committee of Hubei Provinve (P.R. China) and by the
Ministry of Health of Hubei province (P.R. China). We gratefully
acknowledge these sources of support.
 |
|
|
|||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | ||
created 21/12/00
