Immunodiagnosis of aspergillosis

Abstract

Aspergillus species are ubiquitous fungi and have been implicated as the causative agents of a variety of lung disorders in humans. These disorders include allergic, saprophytic, and systemic manifestations. The allergic disorders mainly affect atopic persons, and invasive or systemic diseases affect immunosuppressed individuals. Immunodiagnosis can help the practitioner diagnose these diseases. Demonstration of circulating antibodies is a useful criterion, but the lack of dependable and standardized antigens is a limiting factor in the diagnosis of most Aspergillus-induced diseases. Despite this limitation, however, immunodiffusion and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays have been widely used for the detection of antibodies in the sera of patients with aspergillosis. Similarly, crude and semipurified antigens are being used to demonstrate skin hypersensitivity in patients, and several methods have been useful in the detection of antigenemia in patients with invasive aspergillosis. With a growing number of reports on the incidence of aspergillosis and an increase in the number of immunosuppressed individuals in the population, more rapid methods and more reliable reagents for immunodiagnosis are needed. With recent attempts at obtaining reliable reagents for through hybridoma technology and molecular biological techniques, substantial progress toward efficient immunodiagnosis may be achieved.

T Cell Vaccination in Mice with Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis

“…That A. fumigatus extracts have antigenic properties has been recognized for a long time and has served as the basis for the early development of immunological assays used in the serological diagnosis of aspergillosis (10). CCFA in particular has been useful in detecting serum Ab levels and skin reactivity in human patients (43,57). In contrast to CCFA, Asp f 2 Ag administration did not increase resistance to infection (indeed, it may have exacerbated it) and failed to induce the activation of Ag-specific proliferating Th1 cells capable of conferring protection upon adoptive transfer.…”

Identification and expression of an allergen Asp f 13 from Aspergillus fumigatus and epitope mapping using human IgE antibodies and rabbit polyclonal antibodies

“…Crude preparations of the species A. fumigatus are frequently used in clinical allergy laboratories for skin testing and immunotherapy [5]. Over the past few years, a number of IgE binding components have been identified.…”

Generation of Th1 T cell responses directed to a HLA Class II restricted epitope from theAspergillusf16 allergen

“…Such preparations contain, in addition to the relevant antigens, a large number of non-antigenic components including carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids and even toxins [22,23]. The major disadvantage to these extracts is the inability to standardize the preparations or prepare them in a manner that would be suitable for clinical use [24,25].…”