Mucci Juan, Carmona Santiago J, Volcovich Romina, Altcheh Jaime, Bracamonte Estefanía, Marco Jorge D, Nielsen Morten, Buscaglia Carlos A, Agüero Fernán
Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas (IIB)-Instituto Tecnológico de Chascomús (INTECH), Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM)-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Servicio de Parasitología y Chagas, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutierrez, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2017 Oct 9;11(10):e0005972. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0005972. eCollection 2017 Oct.
Chagas Disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is a major health and economic problem in Latin America for which no vaccine or appropriate drugs for large-scale public health interventions are yet available. Accurate diagnosis is essential for the early identification and follow up of vector-borne cases and to prevent transmission of the disease by way of blood transfusions and organ transplantation. Diagnosis is routinely performed using serological methods, some of which require the production of parasite lysates, parasite antigenic fractions or purified recombinant antigens. Although available serological tests give satisfactory results, the production of reliable reagents remains laborious and expensive. Short peptides spanning linear B-cell epitopes have proven ideal serodiagnostic reagents in a wide range of diseases. Recently, we have conducted a large-scale screening of T. cruzi linear B-cell epitopes using high-density peptide chips, leading to the identification of several hundred novel sequence signatures associated to chronic Chagas Disease. Here, we performed a serological assessment of 27 selected epitopes and of their use in a novel multipeptide-based diagnostic method. A combination of 7 of these peptides were finally evaluated in ELISA format against a panel of 199 sera samples (Chagas-positive and negative, including sera from Leishmaniasis-positive subjects). The multipeptide formulation displayed a high diagnostic performance, with a sensitivity of 96.3% and a specificity of 99.15%. Therefore, the use of synthetic peptides as diagnostic tools are an attractive alternative in Chagas' disease diagnosis.
恰加斯病由原生动物克氏锥虫引起,是拉丁美洲一个重大的健康和经济问题,目前尚无用于大规模公共卫生干预的疫苗或合适药物。准确诊断对于早期识别和跟踪病媒传播病例以及预防通过输血和器官移植传播疾病至关重要。诊断通常使用血清学方法进行,其中一些方法需要制备寄生虫裂解物、寄生虫抗原组分或纯化的重组抗原。尽管现有的血清学检测结果令人满意,但生产可靠的试剂仍然费力且昂贵。在多种疾病中,跨越线性B细胞表位的短肽已被证明是理想的血清学诊断试剂。最近,我们使用高密度肽芯片对克氏锥虫线性B细胞表位进行了大规模筛选,从而鉴定出数百个与慢性恰加斯病相关的新序列特征。在此,我们对27个选定表位进行了血清学评估,并评估了它们在一种基于多种肽的新型诊断方法中的应用。最终,以ELISA形式对这7种肽的组合针对199份血清样本(恰加斯病阳性和阴性,包括利什曼病阳性受试者的血清)进行了评估。这种多种肽配方显示出很高的诊断性能,灵敏度为96.3%,特异性为99.15%。因此,使用合成肽作为诊断工具在恰加斯病诊断中是一种有吸引力的替代方法。