GRA2, a new marker for the serodiagnosis of acute Toxoplasma infection

Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2007 May 15

The dense granule protein GRA2, a new marker for the serodiagnosis of acute Toxoplasma infection: comparison of sera collected in both France and Iran from pregnant women

Golkar M, Rafati S, Abdel-Latif MS, Brenier-Pinchart MP, Fricker-Hidalgo H, Sima BK, Babaie J, Pelloux H, Cesbron-Delauw MF, Mercier C.
CNRS UMR 5163, UFR de Biologie, Institut Jean Roget, Universite Joseph Fourier, Campus Sante, Domaine de la Merci, 38042 Grenoble cedex 09, France; Molecular Parasitology Laboratory, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran 13164, Iran.

GRA2 is a highly immunogenic protein secreted from the dense granules of Toxoplasma gondii. Recent success in purifying full-length, soluble GRA2 from bacteria as a thioredoxin (TRX)-(Hisx6) fusion protein led to investigate the antigenicity of the recombinant protein against human sera. On immunoblots, TRX-(Hisx6)-GRA2 was recognized by sera collected in Iran from T. gondii-infected pregnant women. An IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was developed to evaluate the reactivity of sera, collected from pregnant women both in France and Iran, to the TRX-(Hisx6)-GRA2 fusion protein. Specificity of the test was 96.4%. Sensitivity of the GRA2 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ranged from 95.8% (sera collected in France) to 100% (sera collected in Iran) for sera of acute infection and from 65.7% (sera collected in France) to 71.4% (sera collected in Iran) for sera of chronic infection. The recombinant GRA2 could thus advantageously complement previously described T. gondii antigens for the serodiagnosis of acute Toxoplasma infection.

PMID: 17509806 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]