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J Med Microbiol 55 (2006), 1193-1196; DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.46643-0
© 2006 Society for General Microbiology
ISSN 1473-5644

ß-Mercaptoethanol-modified ELISA for diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis

Elfadil M. Abass1, Durria Mansour1, Mohamed el Mutasim1, Muna Hussein2 and Abdallah el Harith3,{dagger}

1 Ahfad University for Women, PO Box 167, Omdurman, Sudan

2 Omdurman Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Omdurman, Sudan

3 Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Mission to Ahfad University for Women, Omdurman, Sudan

Correspondence
Abdallah el Harith
harith17{at}Yahoo.com

Received 25 March 2006
Accepted 18 May 2006

Following antigen preparation procedures similar to those of the direct agglutination test (DAT), an IgG ELISA employing intact ß-mercaptoethanol (ß-ME)-treated Leishmania donovani promastigotes was developed. The performance of the ß-ME ELISA thus developed was assessed in patients with confirmed visceral leishmaniasis (VL), revealing slightly lower sensitivity (39/40=97.5 %) than that of the DAT (40/40=100 %). When challenged with sera of individuals with non-VL conditions, including leukaemia and African trypanosomiasis, the specificity of the ß-ME ELISA was 100 % (158/158), compared to 98.8 % (156/158) for DAT. In an endemic population (n=145) manifesting a clinical suspicion of VL, results obtained with the ß-ME ELISA were highly concordant with those of DAT, both in the seropositive (65/68=95.6 %) and seronegative (77/80=96.3 %) groups. Furthermore, the incorporated intact antigen demonstrated higher sensitivity in ELISA (16/18=88.9 %) than the water-soluble equivalent (13/18=72.2 %). The stability of the formaldehyde-fixed antigen (2 months at 4 °C) in ß-ME ELISA, as well as the option for direct testing of whole-blood samples and visual reading of results (within 2 h, compared to 18 h for DAT), advocate the simultaneous application of the technique with DAT for confirmation of VL in laboratories with limited facilities.

Abbreviations: DAT, direct agglutination test; ß-ME, ß-mercaptoethanol; VL, visceral leishmaniasis.

{dagger}Present address: Wijngaard 155, 8212 CJ Lelystad, the Netherlands.




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D. Mansour, E. M. Abass, M. el Mutasim, A. Mahamoud, and A. el Harith
Use of a Newly Developed -Mercaptoethanol Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay To Diagnose Visceral Leishmaniasis in Patients in Eastern Sudan
Clin. Vaccine Immunol., December 1, 2007; 14(12): 1592 - 1595.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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