1. Virus-like Particle Display of the α-Gal Epitope for the Diagnostic Assessment of Chagas Disease.
- Author
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Brito CR, McKay CS, Azevedo MA, Santos LC, Venuto AP, Nunes DF, D'Ávila DA, Rodrigues da Cunha GM, Almeida IC, Gazzinelli RT, Galvão LM, Chiari E, Sanhueza CA, Finn MG, and Marques AF
- Subjects
- Antibodies, Protozoan analysis, Antibodies, Protozoan immunology, Antigens, Protozoan analysis, Antigens, Protozoan immunology, Chagas Disease parasitology, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Humans, Trisaccharides immunology, Trypanosoma cruzi genetics, Trypanosoma cruzi immunology, Viruses genetics, Viruses metabolism, Chagas Disease diagnosis, Trisaccharides analysis, Trypanosoma cruzi isolation & purification
- Abstract
The α-Gal antigen [Galα(1,3)Galβ(1,4)GlcNAcα] is an immunodominant epitope displayed by infective trypomastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease. A virus-like particle displaying a high density of α-Gal was found to be a superior reagent for the ELISA-based serological diagnosis of Chagas disease and the assessment of treatment effectiveness. A panel of sera from patients chronically infected with T. cruzi, both untreated and benznidazole-treated, was compared with sera from patients with leishmaniasis and from healthy donors. The nanoparticle-α-Gal construct allowed for perfect discrimination between Chagas patients and the others, avoiding false negative and false positive results obtained with current state-of-the-art reagents. As previously reported with purified α-Gal-containing glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored mucins, the current study also showed concentrations of anti-α-Gal IgG to decrease substantially in patients receiving treatment with benznidazole, suggesting that the semiquantitative assessment of serum levels of this highly abundant type of antibody can report on disease status in individual patients.
- Published
- 2016
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