Nagarkatti Rana, de Araujo Fernanda Fortes, Gupta Charu, Debrabant Alain
Laboratory of Emerging Pathogens, Division of Emerging and Transfusion Transmitted Diseases, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, U. S. Food and Drug Administration, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2014 Jan 16;8(1):e2650. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0002650. eCollection 2014.
Chagas disease affects about 5 million people across the world. The etiological agent, the intracellular parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), can be diagnosed using microscopy, serology or PCR based assays. However, each of these methods has their limitations regarding sensitivity and specificity, and thus to complement these existing diagnostic methods, alternate assays need to be developed. It is well documented that several parasite proteins called T. cruzi Excreted Secreted Antigens (TESA), are released into the blood of an infected host. These circulating parasite antigens could thus be used as highly specific biomarkers of T. cruzi infection. In this study, we have demonstrated that, using a SELEx based approach, parasite specific ligands called aptamers, can be used to detect TESA in the plasma of T. cruzi infected mice. An Enzyme Linked Aptamer (ELA) assay, similar to ELISA, was developed using biotinylated aptamers to demonstrate that these RNA ligands could interact with parasite targets. Aptamer L44 (Apt-L44) showed significant and specific binding to TESA as well as T. cruzi trypomastigote extract and not to host proteins or proteins of Leishmania donovani, a related trypanosomatid parasite. Our result also demonstrated that the target of Apt-L44 is conserved in three different strains of T. cruzi. In mice infected with T. cruzi, Apt-L44 demonstrated a significantly higher level of binding compared to non-infected mice suggesting that it could detect a biomarker of T. cruzi infection. Additionally, Apt-L44 could detect these circulating biomarkers in both the acute phase, from 7 to 28 days post infection, and in the chronic phase, from 55 to 230 days post infection. Our results show that Apt-L44 could thus be used in a qualitative ELA assay to detect biomarkers of Chagas disease.
恰加斯病影响着全球约500万人。其病原体为细胞内寄生虫克氏锥虫(T. cruzi),可通过显微镜检查、血清学检测或基于聚合酶链式反应(PCR)的检测方法进行诊断。然而,这些方法在灵敏度和特异性方面都存在局限性,因此,为了补充现有的诊断方法,需要开发其他检测方法。有充分的文献记载,几种被称为克氏锥虫分泌抗原(TESA)的寄生虫蛋白会释放到受感染宿主的血液中。因此,这些循环寄生虫抗原可作为克氏锥虫感染的高度特异性生物标志物。在本研究中,我们证明,使用基于指数富集的配体系统进化技术(SELEX)的方法,名为适配体的寄生虫特异性配体可用于检测克氏锥虫感染小鼠血浆中的TESA。我们开发了一种类似于酶联免疫吸附测定(ELISA)的酶联适配体(ELA)检测方法,使用生物素化的适配体来证明这些RNA配体可以与寄生虫靶点相互作用。适配体L44(Apt-L44)对TESA以及克氏锥虫无鞭毛体提取物表现出显著且特异性的结合,而对宿主蛋白或相关锥虫寄生虫杜氏利什曼原虫的蛋白无结合。我们的结果还表明,Apt-L44的靶点在克氏锥虫的三种不同菌株中是保守的。在感染克氏锥虫的小鼠中,与未感染小鼠相比,Apt-L44表现出显著更高水平的结合,这表明它可以检测到克氏锥虫感染的生物标志物。此外,Apt-L44可以在感染后7至28天的急性期和感染后55至230天的慢性期检测到这些循环生物标志物。我们的结果表明,Apt-L44可用于定性ELA检测,以检测恰加斯病的生物标志物。