Detection of mycoplasmal antigens in immune complexes from rheumatoid arthritis synovial fluids.

This study was directed towards the detection of suspected antigenic microbial fragments in the immune complex (IC) fraction from chronic inflammatory disorders of the delayed type allergy. Mycoplasmas as the microbial prototype and joint fluids from the rheumatoid host were investigated. Protein-A affinity chromatography was used to isolate the immunoglobulin complex (IgG-IC) in six synovial fluids obtained from rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by Western blot identification of marker protein in human brain tissue.

We tested purified preparations of brain tissue from 39 patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, or kuru, and from 32 patients with a variety of nonspongiform degenerative diseases, with the use of Western blots against an antiserum to a similarly purified fraction made from scrapie-infected hamster brain. Positive reactions occurred in 81 percent of the 31 specimens from the patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (and in all of the 7 specimens that were stored frozen for less than one year), in 3 of the 4 specimens from the patients with kuru, in 3 of the 4 specimens from the patients with Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, and in none of the specimens from the patients with other neurologic degenerative disorders, including familial or sporadic Alzheimer's disease; dementia associated with myoclonus, motor neuron disease, or parkinsonism; and acquired-immunodeficiency-syndrome encephalopathy. Immunologic testing has thus begun to provide a useful and rapid adjunct to neuropathological examinations and animal-transmission experiments for the diagnosis of the spongiform encephalopathies.

Serodiagnosis of human cysticercosis using a chromatofocused antigenic preparation of Taenia solium cysticerci in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Crude preparations of Taenia solium cysticerci were partially purified by a chromatofocusing procedure to obtain antigenic fractions that were shown to be active in the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with known positive cysticercosis sera. Evaluation of this antigen in the ELISA serodiagnosis of human cysticercus infection showed an 80% detection of clinically typical cysticercosis patients from West New Guinea, and gave no false positive results in healthy control subjects from either Papua New Guinea or the USA. Cross-reactivity to sera from a panel of subjects with a variety of other parasitic infections was limited to convalescent sera from individuals with echinococcosis.

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of antibody to cysticerci of Taenia solium.

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of antibody to cysticerci of Taenia solium has been developed that employs a pork muscle antigen control for the cysticercus test antigen, somewhat improving the serological distinction between infected and uninfected subjects. Serum antibody to cysticercus was detected in 79% of classical neurocysticercosis patients from Mexico, and in 61% of a group of cysticercosis patients with an unusually rapid invasion of the central nervous system in an endemic focus of disease in Irian Jaya. Antibody was absent in a group of healthy American laboratory personnel, and in residents of a non-endemic region of Papua New Guinea.

ELISA antibodies to cysticerci of Taenia solium in human populations in New Guinea, Oceania, and Southeast Asia.

The presence of ELISA antibodies to cysticerci of Taenia solium was surveyed in populations of New Guinea, Micronesia, and several areas of Southeast Asia. It is confirmed that cysticercosis in New Guinea remains limited to the primary Wissel Lakes focus in Irian Jaya, where the disease was introduced by the importation of infected pigs, and that it has not spread to populations east or south of the Wissel Lakes, or to Papua New Guinea. On the island of Bali, Indonesia, 21% of sera were positive from one village where pigs are especially numerous, whereas in Sumatra, Indonesia, only 3%-4% of sera were positive.