AIMS To study ulcerative colitis associated neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (p-ANCA) in respect of class and subclass distribution, antigen specificity, and (sub)cellular localisation of the antigen(s) to which these antibodies are directed. METHODS p-ANCA positivity was determined using the standard indirect immunofluorescence test (IIFT). The immunoglobulin (Ig) subclass distribution of p...

one of the most practical routine tests for convergence of a positive series makes use of the ratio test. if this test fails, we can use rabbe's test. when rabbe's test fails the next sharper criteria which may sometimes be used is the bertrand's test. if this test fails, we can use a generalization of bertrand's test and such tests can be continued innitely. for simplicity...

background: the aim of this study was to evaluate the possible use of biomphalaria alexandrina snail antigens in diagnosis of schistosomiasis mansoni using enzyme linked immunolectrotransfere blot (eitb). methods: s. mansoni adult worm crude antigens (awa), feet and visceral humps of b. alexandrina and bulinus truncatus were used. hyperimmune mice sera (his) versus each antigen were prepared fo...

Faden et al. recently reported the use of the NOW immunochromatographic test to rapidly detect nasopharyngeal colonization with Streptococcus pneumoniae (1). While the specificity of the test in this study was relatively high (97.7%), it is important to be aware that oropharyngeal colonizing bacteria other than S. pneumoniae may also produce positive results with this test. Specifically, Strept...

Rapid detection of soluble F1 capsular antigen in serum, bubo fluid or urine of patients proved to be a valuable tool in the presumptive diagnosis of plague. We evaluated a F1 capsular antigen capture ELISA resembling a commercially available test kit. The minimal detectable concentration was 4 ng/ml. The specificity was 100% when investigating 47 sera from healthy Malagasy subjects and 98.4% w...

BACKGROUND There is a close link between fungal sensitization and asthma severity. Although Schizophyllum commune (S. commune, "suehirotake" in Japanese), one of the basidiomycetous (BM) fungi, is a fungus that can cause allergic bronchopulmonary mycosis (ABPM) and allergic fungal sinusitis (AFS), whether the fungus causes or sensitizes subjects to asthma is unclear. METHODS The bronchial pro...

A double-antigen sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is described for detection of porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) antibodies using the well-characterized recombinant PCV2 capsid protein. In a comparative test of 394 pig sera against an indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) test and a commercial ELISA kit (also based on the recombinant PCV2 capsid protein), the results showed that the di...

most contemporary clinical reasoning tests typically assess non-automatic thinking. therefore, a test is needed to measure automatic reasoning or pattern recognition, which has been largely neglected in clinical reasoning tests. the puzzle test (pt) is dedicated to assess automatic clinical reasoning in routine situations. this test has been introduced first in 2009 by monajemi et al in the oly...

Previous papers (1, 2) reported evidence of immunological relationship between a variety of Saccharomyces cerevisi.ae (yeast) and the Type I I variety of Diplococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus). The relationship, apparently dependent upon S-anti-S reactions, was evidenced by the immunological reactions of agglutination and of passive protection in which the test antigens were the whole cells of t...