The potency of cellular immune responses strongly depends on T cell avidity to antigen. Yet, functional avidity measurements are rarely performed in patients, mainly due to the technical challenges of characterizing heterogeneous T cells. The mean functional T cell avidity can be determined by the IFN-γ Elispot assay, with titrated amounts of peptide. Using this assay, we developed a method rev...

Three hundred fifty five pregnant women were tested for IgM and IgG type of antibodies by Enzyme Immuno Assay (EIA). Sero-positivity for IgM and IgG antibodies were 13% and 29% respectively. Of 212 pregnant women with abortion, 39 (18%) and 80 (38%) were sero-positive and of 143 pregnant women with normal reproductive performance, 7 (5%) and 23 (16%) were positive for IgM and IgG respectively. ...

Chronic allograft rejection is in part mediated by host T cells that recognize allogeneic antigens on transplanted tissue. One factor that determines the outcome of a T cell response is clonal size, while another is the effector quality. Studies of alloimmune predictors of transplant graft survival have most commonly focused on only one measure of the alloimmune response. Because differing qual...

10 JALA Febru The Elispot technique has gained much attention over the past few years. Its outstanding sensitivity and general ease of performance has made it one of the most attractive assay candidates for immunomonitoring purposes, including vaccine development and vaccine trials in various phases, diagnostics, and basic research. The demands of the market call for a simplified and automated ...

Background Lyme borreliosis (LB) is multisystem infectious disease with various clinical manifestations. In Europe, LB is caused by gram-negative spirochetal bacteria of the complex Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. The most important for human pathogenicity are B. garinii, B. afzelii and B.burgdorferi sensu stricto. Indirect laboratory diagnostics of LB is based on serological methods such as E...

Cattle were vaccinated with an adenovirus expressing the mycobacterial antigen 85A (rAd85A), with Mycobacterium bovis BCG followed by rAd85A heterologous boosting, or with rAd85A followed by BCG boosting. BCG/rAd85A resulted in the highest direct gamma interferon responses. Cultured enzyme-linked immunospot assay analysis demonstrated that memory responses were induced by all three protocols bu...