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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, January 2001, p. 138-142, Vol. 8, No. 1
Department of
Microbiology1 and Institute for
Immunology and Immunological Diseases,2 Yonsei
University College of Medicine, Seoul 120-752, The Republic of Korea;
Leonard Wood Memorial Center, Cebu 6000, The
Philippines3; and Department of
Microbiology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
805234
Received 8 June 2000/Returned for modification 25 July
2000/Accepted 23 October 2000
A total of 100 untreated new leprosy patients were
recruited prospectively and examined for the presence of phenolic
glycolipid I (PGL-I) antigen in their serum specimens by dot
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using rabbit anti-PGL-I
antiserum. The presence of circulating PGL-I antigen was closely
related to the bacterial indices (BI) of the patients. The PGL-I
antigen was detectable in 27 (93.1%) of 29 patients with a BI of 4.0 or above and in 15 (68.2%) of 22 patients with a BI of 3.0 to 3.9. However, none of the 37 patients with a BI of less than 1.9 had detectable PGL-I antigen by the methods used in this study. The level
of PGL-I in serum declined rapidly by about 90% 1 month after the
start of multidrug therapy. This study showed clearly that anti-PGL-I
IgM antibodies and circulating PGL-I antigen levels reflect the
bacterial loads in untreated leprosy patients. The serological
parameters based on the PGL-I antigen may therefore be useful in the
assessment of leprosy patients at the time of diagnosis and possibly in
monitoring patients following chemotherapy.
1071-412X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.8.1.138-142.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Detection of Phenolic Glycolipid I of
Mycobacterium leprae in Sera from Leprosy Patients
before and after Start of Multidrug Therapy
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seoul 120-752, Republic of Korea. Phone: 822-361-5282. Fax:
82-2-313-9028. E-mail: raycho{at}yumc.yonsei.ac.kr.
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