Two Roomtemperature-stable Trications - Triprotonated Triamino- and Tricyanobenzene.

Protonation of 1,3,5-tricyano- and 1,3,5-triaminobenzene was achieved in various superacidic media, resulting in the formation of the respective trinitrilium and triammonium species. Furthermore, the respective N-methyl nitrilium species was synthesized by methylation. Characterization was performed by NMR and vibrational spectroscopy, followed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses of selected species.

[The Dot immunoenzymatic assay on nitrocellulose (Dot-ELISA) in the diagnosis of Chagas disease. II. Seroepidemiologic study in 4 rural communities of Venezuela].

A survey of human Trypanosoma cruzi infection in four rural communities of two Venezuelan states with different epidemiological Chagas' disease situations was carried out using the Dot-ELISA and conventional serology. In the two hamlets of Zulia state, no seropositives were found in the under-15 age group whereas seropositivity in the over-15 group was 15.6%.

[Immunoenzyme assay using micro Dot on nitrocellulose (Dot-ELISA) in the diagnosis of Chagas' disease. I. Comparative study of 2 antigenic preparations of Trypanosoma cruzi].

Using the Dot-ELISA technique, two antigenic preparations of Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote forms have been compared for the diagnosis of Chagas' disease: (1) The cytoplasmic fraction (cytoplasmic antigen) and (2) whole formalin fixed epimastigotes (integral antigen). There was been used sera from 95 chagasic patients with chronic cardiomyopathy, positive conventional serology and either positive or negative xenodiagnosis; 74 subjects with negative conventional serology, and either clinically normal or presenting cardiomyopathy; 74 patients with different diseases including syphilis, toxoplasmosis, leishmaniasis or autoantibodies such as rheumatoid factor and antinuclear antibodies. By defining the diagnostic titers (cut off): 1:512 for cytoplasmic antigen and 1:128 for the integral antigen, a sensitivity of 100% has been obtained with both antigenic preparations, being the specificity of 96% for the former and 100% for the latter when leishmaniasis sera were not included.

Longitudinal study of immune response in human Chagas' disease.

Immune response, clinical status, and reactivity to heart tissue were studied longitudinally for 1 year in 42 patients with Chagas' disease (South American trypanosomiasis). The patients were divided into two groups. Group 1 was composed of patients with chagasic infection with no evidence of heart disease.