Gidwani, Kamlesh ; Jones, Stephen ; Kumar, Rajiv ; Boelaert, Marleen ; Sundar, Shyam (2011) Interferon-Gamma release assay (Modified QuantiFERON) as a potential marker of infection for Leishmania donovani, a proof of concept study PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 5 (4). e1042_1-e1042_5. ISSN 1935-2735
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Official URL: http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.13...
Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001042
Abstract
Background: In areas endemic for visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a large number of infected individuals mount a protective cellular immune response and remain asymptomatic carriers. We propose an interferon-gamma release assay (IFN-γRA) as a novel marker for latent L. donovani infection. Methods and Findings: We modified a commercial kit (QuantiFERON) evaluating five different leishmania-specific antigens; H2B, H2B-PSA2, H2B-Lepp12, crude soluble antigen (CSA) and soluble leishmania antigen (SLA) from L. donovani with the aim to detect the cell-mediated immune response in VL. We evaluated the assay on venous blood samples of active VL patients (n = 13), cured VL patients (n = 15), non-endemic healthy controls (n = 11) and healthy endemic controls (n = 19). The assay based on SLA had a sensitivity of 80% (95% CI = 54.81-92.95) and specificity of 100% (95% CI = 74.12-100). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that a whole-blood SLA-based QuantiFERON assay can be used to measure the cell-mediated immune response in L. donovani infection. The positive IFN-γ response to stimulation with leishmania antigen in patients with active VL was contradictory to the conventional finding of a non-proliferative antigen-specific response of peripheral blood mononuclear cells and needs further research.
Item Type: | Article |
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Source: | Copyright of this article belongs to Public Library of Science. |
ID Code: | 71585 |
Deposited On: | 25 Nov 2011 12:55 |
Last Modified: | 18 May 2016 17:12 |
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