Publications by authors named "Maria Milagros Cortez"

Neurocysticercosis (NC) presents a spectrum of clinical manifestations, with two broad clinical entities based on the central nervous system location of the parasite: extraparenchymal (EP-NC) and parenchymal (P-NC). In this work, using quantitative immunoblot methodology, we demonstrate the presence of autoantibodies to brain proteins in CSF from EP-NC, but not P-NC, patients. There was striking correlation between the level of autoantibodies and the levels of the secreted metacestode glycoprotein HP-10, suggesting that the level of stimulation of the autoantibody response may be a function of the number of viable parasites.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effectiveness of various immunologic tests for diagnosing neurocysticercosis (NC) in patients, comparing results from serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples.
  • A case-control study in Cuenca, Ecuador, enrolled 24 NC patients and 18 other neurosurgical patients, using different antigen and DNA detection methods including HP10 antigen assays and PCR in CSF.
  • Results showed that the HP10 Ag assay in CSF and PCR were particularly effective, especially for cases of extraparenchymal NC, suggesting they could serve as valuable diagnostic tools alongside neuroimaging.
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Background: Previously we reported the use of a monoclonal antibody-based (HP10) antigen (Ag) detection lateral flow assay (LFA) for the diagnosis of extraparenchymal neurocysticercosis (EP-NCC). The assay performed well when used with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples but not with their paired serum samples, due to false-positive reactions in some known negative control cases.

Methods: Our novel modification involves pretreatment of serum samples using a combination of sodium deoxycholate and dithiothreitol.

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To evaluate diagnosis of active neurocysticercosis, paired cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and serum samples from 24 neurocysticercosis (NCC) patients and 17 control neurological patients were assayed in the HP10 Taenia antigen (Ag) ELISA. The CSF samples were also tested with an HP10 Lateral Flow Assay (LFA). The HP10 Ag was detected by ELISA in the CSF of 5/5 patients with Definitive extraparenchymal NCC, and in 4/5 of the corresponding sera.

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To study diagnostic epitopes within the Taenia solium 8 kDa antigen family, six overlapping synthetic peptides from an 8 kDa family member (Ts8B2) were synthesized and evaluated by ELISA and MABA with sera from patients with neurocysticercosis (NCC), from infected pigs and from rabbits immunized with recombinant Ts8B2 protein. The pre-immune rabbit sera and the Ts8B2 recombinant protein served as negative and positive controls, respectively. A similar analysis was done with the already described antigenic peptides from another member of the 8 kDa family, highly similar to Ts8B2, the CyDA antigen.

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Ts8B2 is a gene which encodes for a member of the Taenia solium metacestode 8kDa antigen family. Since the Ts8B2-GST recombinant protein compares very favourably with other diagnostic antigens, and in order to study the antigenic nature and structure of this molecule, the Ts8B2 was expressed in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. The diagnostic potential of the recombinant Ts8B2 proteins was evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) using a collection of serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with clinically defined neurocysticercosis (NCC), and also sera from T.

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With the objective of providing inexpensive and reproducible assays for the detection of antibodies indicating exposure to Taenia saginata and Taenia solium, we have evaluated the diagnostic utility of the T. saginata oncosphere adhesion protein (HP6-Tsag), expressed in baculovirus (HP6-Bac) and bacteria (HP6-GST [glutathione S-transferase]), employing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) and sera from T. saginata infected cattle, T.

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Antibody screening of a lambdaZAP-XR Taenia solium metacestode cDNA library yielded a clone (Ts8B1), with an insert of 345 bp, and an open reading frame of 258 bp, that coded for a protein with 85 amino acid residues. Alignment of the predicted amino acid sequence with sequences from SWISSPROT revealed an 88% identity with TcA5.5, a 10 kDa immunodiagnostic antigen of T.

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A cDNA encoding for a predicted small heat shock protein (sHSP), Tsol-sfISP35.6, has been isolated by antibody screening of a Taenia solium c-DNA library. The clone was a full-length sequence (1172 bp) with an open reading frame of 945 bp and encoded for a 314 amino acid protein with deduced molecular mass of 35.

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A lambdaZAP-express cDNA library of Taenia saginata metacestodes was constructed. Antibody screening yielded a clone with an insert of 3,408 bp, an open reading frame of 2,589 bp, a deduced sequence of 863 amino acid and a molecular mass of 98.89 kDa.

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