Recombinant proteins in the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is an important human pathogen with a worldwide distribution. It is primarily of medical importance for pregnant women and immunocompromised patients. Primary infection of the former is often associated with fetal infection, which can lead to abortion or severe neonatal malformation. Immunocompromised patients are at risk of contracting the severe form of the disease that may be fatal. Thus, detection of T. gondii infection with high sensitivity and specificity is crucial in the management of the disease. Toxoplasmosis is generally diagnosed by demonstrating specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibodies to toxoplasma antigens in the patient's serum sample. Most of the commercially available tests use T. gondii native antigens and display wide variations in test accuracy. Recombinant antigens have great potential as diagnostic reagents for use in assays to detect toxoplasmosis. Thus in this review, we address recent advances in the use of Toxoplasma recombinant proteins for serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis.

Identification of Potential Serodiagnostic and Subunit Vaccine Antigens by Antibody Profiling of Toxoplasmosis Cases in Turkey

“…Over the past couple of decades, around 20 different proteins from T. gondii have been evaluated as antigens for serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis (reviewed recently in (16). These antigens include surface antigens (SAG1 and 2), rhoptry proteins (ROP1 and 2), dense granule proteins (GRA1, 2, and 4 -8), microneme proteins (MIC2-5), and a matrix protein (MAG1).…”

“…These antigens include surface antigens (SAG1 and 2), rhoptry proteins (ROP1 and 2), dense granule proteins (GRA1, 2, and 4 -8), microneme proteins (MIC2-5), and a matrix protein (MAG1). Most have shown only limited use for distinguishing recently acute from chronic infections and have not found their way into routine diagnosic use (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). Meanwhile, the array employed here represents only a fraction of the nearly 8000 genes encoded in the T. gondii genome.…”

“…More rapid and userfriendly ELISAs and agglutination tests are now routinely used for diagnosis. Most are based on largely undefined T. gondii lysates as the detection antigens (12)(13)(14), and recent attempts to use more defined antigens have been met with only limited success (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)). An indirect immunofluoresence assay (IFA) 1 using whole, formalin-fixed T. gondii tachyzoites, is also widely used to detect specific IgG (24,25).…”

Cloning DNA Vaccine Candidate SAG1 Gene of Toxoplasma gondii

“…ELISA'nın yanı sıra avidite testlerinde de rekombinant SAG1 proteini başarı ile kullanılarak ticari kitler geliştiril-miştir (6). SAG1 proteini, tanı çalışmalarında tek başına kullanıldı-ğı gibi GRA1 ve GRA7 gibi rekombinant proteinlerle de kombine edilerek kullanılmış ve olumlu sonuçlar alınmıştır (7,8). SAG1 geni tanı çalışmaları dışında aşı çalışmalarında da en önemli aday molekül olarak kabul edilmiştir.…”

Cloning and Sequencing of Truncated Toxoplasma gondii Subtilisin-Like 1 Antigen

“…There are several target genes of T. gondii which have been cloned and expressed into prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems. Surface antigens (SAGs), matrix antigens (MAGs), microneme proteins (MICs), rhoptry proteins (ROPs), and dense granule proteins (GRAs) are the most immunodominant and stage-specific antigens of T. gondii tachyzoite and bradyzoite stages [30]. In the present study the 744 bp TgSUB1 PCR product from T. gondii strain RH was cloned into pCR®2.1 vector via T/A Cloning® Kit (Invitrogen, USA) based on T/A cloning method.…”