Surface proteins play key roles in the interaction between cells and their environment, and in pathogenic microorganisms they are the best targets for drug or vaccine discovery and/or development. In addition, surface proteins can be the basis for serodiagnostic tools aiming at developing more affordable techniques for early diagnosis of infection in patients. We carried out a proteomic analysi...

The present authors have previously reported the usefulness of a serodiagnostic test to detect serum glycopeptidolipid (GPL) core antibody in diagnosing Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) lung disease in immunocompetent patients. The aim of the present study was to investigate correlations between the levels of antibody against GPL core and chest computed tomography (CCT) findings in patients wi...

Improved diagnostic reagents are needed for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections, and the development of a serodiagnostic test would complement presently available diagnostic methods. The aim of the present study was to identify novel serological targets for use for the future serodiagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). We cloned and expressed 35 M. tuberculosis proteins as recombinan...

Hepatic cysts are increasingly found as a mere coincidence on abdominal imaging techniques, such as ultrasonography (USG), computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These cysts often present a diagnostic challenge. Therefore, we performed a review of the recent literature and developed an evidence-based diagnostic algorithm to guide clinicians in characterising these lesion...

The humoral response to different proteinaceous antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is heterogeneous among patients with active disease, and this has originated in the proposal to use a combination of several specific antigens to find an efficient serodiagnostic test for tuberculosis (TB). However, to date, comparisons of antibody responses to several antigens in the same population have bee...

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen38 is a potent serodiagnostic agent containing two M. tuberculosisspecific B-cell epitopes. The high price of imported diagnostic agents hinders realization of fast clinical TB diagnosis in developing countries. Therefore, we produced recombinant antigen38 (recAg38M) from M. tuberculosis local strain, which might be used to produce economical tuberc...

We have prospectively analyzed three antigens for serodiagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). These antigens were tuberculous glycolipid antigen, lypoarabinomannan polysaccharide antigen, and antigen 60 (A60), which was derived from purified protein derivatives. Of the 131 patients with active pulmonary TB, 57 were both smear and culture negative and 14 had chronic active pulmonary TB that remained sme...