• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.299-307
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• 1992

An antigenic protein in cystic quid of Taenia solium metacestodes (CF) of 150 kDa was measured by antibody-sandwich ELISA in serum and cerebrospinal quid (CSF) of neurocysticercosis patients. Capture antibodies were rabbit antisera against CF (RACF) and a monoclonal antibody (MAb) against 150 kDa protein in CF. Lower limit of antibody-sandwich ELISA was 8 ng/ml of the protein. Except CF, no tested helminthes extracts reacted. Levels of the protein in 351 sera from 255 patients (55 surgery confirmed and 202 antibody and CT/MRl confirmed) were below sensitivity of the assay. Of 276 CSF from 212 patients, 31 samples (11.2%) showed positive findings. This assay, therefore, was not sensitive enough to be a diagnostic. Instead, the 150 kDa protein appeared in CSF in such situations as in 2 days after prasiquantel treatment, or as in a patient infected with a racemose cysticercus with degenerated cyst wall. Of cases whose follow-up CSF were assayed, 2 cases showed that the protein appeared intermittently, These results suggest strongly that appearance of free 150 kDa protein is associated with cyst wall rupture. In CSF which contained the 150 kDa protein over 61 ng/ml, the protein was recognized in 505-PAGE before and after immunoprecipitation.