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The gold standard serodiagnostic assay for cysticercosis and neurocysticercosis, diseases caused by the metacestode of Taenia solium, uses lentil lectin-purified glycoprotein (LLGP) in a Western blot assay. We tested two antigens derived from LLGP, synthetic TS18var1 (sTS18var1) and recombinant GP50 antigen (rGP50), in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. The sensitivity for serum and CSF was 94.7% and 100% for rGP50 and 90.4% and 90.2% for sTS18var1, respectively. The specificity for serum and CSF samples was 93.8% and 100% for rGP50 and 90.3% and 98.0% for sTS18var1, respectively. The use of these antigens individually or combined as a diagnostic antigen cocktail eliminates the need for purification of antigens from parasite material and offers the advantage of using a simple and quantitative ELISA format.

A comparative study was conducted on membrane (M) and vesicular fluid (VF) from cysticerci of Taenia solium (Tso) obtained from naturally infected swine and the Taenia crassiceps ORF strain (Tc) maintained by experimental infection of female BALB/c mice. The study was carried out using immunoblotting to detect antibodies in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from patients with neurocysticercosis. No reactivity was observed in the 32 samples from a control group. Of the 23 CSF fluid samples from patients with neurocysticercosis, 22 (95.6%) were reactive in the M-Tso blot and 21 (91.3%) were reactive in the other three blots (VF-Tso, M-Tc, and VF-Tc). Immunodominant peptides in each antigen were 98-92 kD, 56-52 kD, and 72-68 kD in M-Tso; 72-68 kD, 120 kD, 155 kD, 98-94 kD, 76 kD, and 115-108 kD in VF-Tso: 72 kD, 62 kD, and 42 kD in M-Tc; and 72-68 kD and 95-92 kD in VF-Tc. The cross-reactivity observed in the immunoblots performed on CSF samples from patients with neurocysticercosis indicates that the parasites share important epitopes present at sufficient concentrations for use in immunologic tests.