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Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a major health problem in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The conventional methods for diagnosis of Old World Visceral leishmaniasis are difficult, insensitive, and hazardous. There is no recombinant antigen from old world Leishmania species which can be commercially used for rapid diagnosis. There is an urgent need for a less invasive and accurate method. Here, we report a recombinant antigen from Indian Leishmania donovani for its diagnosis. The kinesin gene of a L. donovani clinical isolate (KE16) from India was PCR amplified for cloning and the immunodominant domain was expressed in Escherichia coli. This recombinant protein or Ld-rKE16 was evaluated for serodiagnosis of Indian kala-azar by ELISA. The recombinant antigen was found to be 100% sensitive and specific for Old World VL cases from India, Pakistan, China, and Turkey. The antigen showed no cross-reactivity with sera from other endemic diseases or healthy controls. The expressed Ld-rKE16 antigen is highly specific and sensitive for diagnosing visceral and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis and is ready for commercialization.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pep.2005.07.027 | DOI Listing |
Emerg Microbes Infect
December 2025
School of Global Health, Chinese Centre for Tropical Diseases Research, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
There is no vaccine for severe malaria. STEVOR antigens on the surface of -infected red blood cells are implicated in severe malaria and are targeted by neutralizing antibodies, but their epitopes remain unknown. Using computational immunology, we identified highly immunogenic overlapping B- and T-cell epitopes (referred to as multiepitopes, 7-27 amino acids) in the semiconserved domain of four STEVORs linked with severe malaria and clinical immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVet World
July 2025
Laboratory of Immunochemistry and Immunobiotechnology, National Center for Biotechnology, 010000, Astana, Kazakhstan.
Background And Aim: Bovine babesiosis, caused by , poses significant economic challenges to Kazakhstan's cattle industry. Early and accurate detection is crucial for interrupting transmission cycles, particularly in regions lacking advanced diagnostic infrastructure. This study aimed to develop a rapid lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) using a recombinant C-terminal fragment of the recombinant rhoptry-associated protein 1 (rRap1) antigen for the serodiagnosis of bovine babesiosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiotechnol Lett
September 2025
Department of Chemical Engineering, Hongik University, Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, 04066, Republic of Korea.
The cell surface display system employs carrier proteins to present target proteins on the outer membrane of cells. This system enables functional proteins to be exposed on the exterior of living cells without cell lysis, allowing direct interaction with the surrounding environment. A major limitation of conventional approaches is the difficulty in displaying large-sized enzymes or antibodies, despite their critical roles in applications requiring functional domains that must remain intact, such as catalytic or antigen-binding sites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElife
September 2025
Chinese Academy of Medical Science Oxford Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Influenza virus neuraminidase (NA) is a crucial target for protective antibodies, yet the development of recombinant NA protein as a vaccine has been held back by instability and variable expression. We have taken a pragmatic approach to improving expression and stability of NA by grafting antigenic surface loops from low-expressing NA proteins onto the scaffold of high-expressing counterparts. The resulting hybrid proteins retained the antigenic properties of the loop donor while benefiting from the high-yield expression, stability, and tetrameric structure of the loop recipient.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Genet
September 2025
Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
The Ancestral Recombination Graph (ARG), which describes the genealogical history of a sample of genomes, is a vital tool in population genomics and biomedical research. Recent advancements have substantially increased ARG reconstruction scalability, but they rely on approximations that can reduce accuracy, especially under model misspecification. Moreover, they reconstruct only a single ARG topology and cannot quantify the considerable uncertainty associated with ARG inferences.
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