A Bead-Based Assay for the Detection of Antibodies against Trichinella spp. Infection in Humans

Abstract

Human trichinellosis can be diagnosed by a combination of medical history, clinical presentation, and laboratory findings, and through detection of anti–Trichinella IgG in the patient’s sera. ELISA using excretory–secretory (E/S) antigens of Trichinella spiralis larvae is currently the most used assay to detect Trichinella spp. antibodies. Bead-based assay can detect antibodies to multiple antigens concurrently; the ability to detect antibody to T. spiralis using a bead assay could be useful for diagnosis and surveillance. We developed and evaluated a bead assay to detect and quantify total IgG or IgG4 Trichinella spp. antibodies in human serum using T. spiralis E/S antigens. The sensitivity and specificity of the assay were determined using serum from 110 subjects with a confirmed diagnosis of trichinellosis, 140 subjects with confirmed infections with other tissue-dwelling parasites, 98 human serum samples from residents of the United States with no known history of parasitic infection, and nine human serum samples from residents of Egypt with negative microscopy for intestinal parasites. Sensitivity and specificity were 93.6% and 94.3% for total IgG and 89.2% and 99.2% for IgG4, respectively. Twelve percent of sera from patients with confirmed schistosomiasis reacted with the IgG Trichinella bead assay, as did 11% of sera from patients with neurocysticercosis. The Trichinella spp. bead assay to detect IgG total antibody responses has a similar performance as the Trichinella E/S ELISA. The Trichinella spp. bead assay shows promise as a method to detect trichinellosis with a possibility to be used in multiplex applications.

Untargeted serum metabolomics analysis of Trichinella spiralis-infected mouse

“…Immunological techniques, e.g., ELISA, are the most common methods used to detect Trichinella antigens and their counterpart antibodies. Many parasitic proteins, for example, excretory-secretory (ES) antigens [ 21 , 22 ], serine protease [ 23 ], elastase-1 [ 24 ], and crude somatic antigen [ 25 ], have been used to develop diagnostic tests. Some studies found >90% sensitivity and specificity, unfortunately, barriers to the success of immunological techniques still exist.…”

Pleural effusion caused by Trichinella spiralis infection: two case reports

“…The diagnosis of human Trichinellosis is mainly based on clinical symptoms and serological tests, such as ELISA, indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA), enzyme immunohistochemistry technique (EIH), and Western-Blotting (WB), The International Commission on Trichinosis recommends ELISA, which detects anti-trichinella IgG in patients' serum by excretory secretion (E/S) antigen of Trichinella spiralis larvae. The sensitivity and specificity of total IgG were 93.6% and 94.3%, respectively [ 6 ]. The limitations of this method are that it has a high false-negative rate in the early stage of infection (1–3 months) and cannot distinguish between acute and previous infection [ 7 ].…”