Expression of hepatitis B surface antigen major subtypes in Pichia pastoris and purification for in vitro diagnosis.

This study describes the expression in Pichia pastoris of hepatitis B surface antigens (HBsAg) corresponding to the S region of the four major subtypes: adr, adw2, ayr and ayw3 and to the preS2-S region of the two subtypes adr and adw2. The recombinant yeast strains have been selected amongst methanol utilization positive (Mut+) or sensitive strains (Mut s) and cultivated to high cell density in bioreactor using a short protocol. Our results prove the efficiency of P.

Crystal structure of the complex between the monomeric form of Toxoplasma gondii surface antigen 1 (SAG1) and a monoclonal antibody that mimics the human immune response.

Toxoplasma gondii, the intracellular parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis infects more than one-third of the world population and can be life-threatening for fetuses and immunocompromised patients. The surface protein SAG1 is an important immune target, which provides a strong immune response against the invasive tachyzoite while the other forms of the parasite, devoid of SAG1 at their surface, are multiplying. In addition to this role as a "hot spot" decoy, SAG1 is predicted to act as an adhesin during host-cell attachment through its binding to proteoglycans.

Autoantibodies recognizing citrullinated rat filaggrin in an ELISA using citrullinated and non-citrullinated recombinant proteins as antigens are highly diagnostic for rheumatoid arthritis.

The objective of the study was to determine the diagnostic value for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) of anti-filaggrin autoantibodies (autoAb) recognizing citrullinated recombinant rat filaggrin (ACRF) in community cases of very early arthritis. To evaluate the diagnostic value of ACRF, were studied sera from patients with different classified rheumatic diseases and healthy subjects (group 1, n= 422) and 314 community cases of very early arthritis (group 2) that were classified as RA (n = 176), non-RA (n = 63) and undifferentiated (n = 75) arthritides after 1 years of follow-up. ACRF were measured using a new ELISA, with results expressed as the difference between the OD value obtained on citrullinated minus that on noncitrullinated rat filaggrin (differential ACRF; dACRF).

Molecular cloning, overexpression in Escherichia coli, and purification of 6x his-tagged C-terminal domain of Clostridium difficile toxins A and B.

Genomic DNA from ribotype-01 and -17 Clostridium difficile strains was used for amplification of the sequences encoding the carboxy-terminal domain of toxins A (TcdA) and B (TcdB). The deduced C-terminal TcdB ribotype-01 and -17 domains share 99.5% amino acid sequence identity while TcdA ribotype-17 comprises a 607 amino acid deletion compared to TcdA-01.

Detection of antibodies to deiminated recombinant rat filaggrin by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay: a highly effective test for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To assay antifilaggrin autoantibodies, we developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using a "citrullinated" recombinant rat filaggrin. Our objectives were to assess its value for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to compare the results with those obtained using 4 other reference methods for detection of antifilaggrin autoantibodies, including the commercially available ELISA that uses a modified "citrullinated" synthetic peptide derived from the sequence of human filaggrin (CCP-ELISA).

Methods: We analyzed 711 sera from patients with well-characterized rheumatic diseases, including 240 patients with RA.