Silas S. Santana, Luiz C. Gebrim, Fernando R. Carvalho, Heber S. Barros, Patrício C. Barros, Ana C. A. M. Pajuaba, Valeria Messina, Alessia Possenti, Simona Cherchi, Edna M. V. Reiche, Italmar T. Navarro, João L. Garcia, Edoardo Pozio, Tiago W. P. Mineo, Furio Spano, José R. Mineo
Abstract
Considering that the current immunoassays are not able to distinguish the infective forms that cause Toxoplasma gondii infection, the present study was carried out to evaluate the reactivity of two recombinant proteins (CCp5A and OWP1) from oocyst/sporozoite, in order to differentiate infections occurring by ingestion of oocysts or tissue cysts. The reactivity of the recombinant proteins was assessed against panels of serum samples from animals (chickens, pigs, and mice) that were naturally or experimentally infected by different infective stages of the parasite. Also, we tested sera from humans who have been infected by oocysts during a well-characterized toxoplasmosis outbreak, as well as sera from pregnant women tested IgM(+)/IgG(+) for T. gondii, which source of infection was unknown. Only the sporozoite-specific CCp5A protein was able to differentiate the parasite stage that infected chickens, pigs and mice, with specific reactivity for oocyst-infected animals. Furthermore, the CCp5A showed preferential reactivity for recent infection by oocyst/sporozoite in pigs and mice. In humans, CCp5A showed higher reactivity with serum samples from the outbreak, compared with serum from pregnant women. Altogether, these findings demonstrate the usefulness of the CCp5A protein as a new tool to identify the parasite stage of T. gondii infection, allowing its application for diagnosis and epidemiological investigations in animals and humans. The identification of parasite infective stage can help to design effective strategies to minimize severe complications in immunocompromised people and, particularly, in pregnant women to prevent congenital infection.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 February 2016.
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#6,286,833
of 22,833,393 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Microbiology
#6,217
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Outputs of similar age
#97,952
of 386,693 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Microbiology
#100
of 424 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,833,393 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 24,810 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 424 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.
