Abstract
Blastomycosis, the systemic fungal infection of humans and animals, has presented a diagnostic challenge to clinicians and laboratory personnel for many years. Our laboratory has been concentrating on attempting to develop antigenic reagents from the yeast phase of various isolates of Blastomyces dermatitidis and to evaluate these lysate antigens with regard to antibody detection in blastomycosis. The aim of this current study was to evaluate yeast phase antigens prepared from four dog isolates of B. dermatitidis and to evaluate their efficacy, when used individually or in combination, for antibody detection in sera from dogs with blastomycosis. Mean absorbance values using the ELISA to assay 24 serum specimens (Trial 1) ranged from 0.588 with an individual lysate antigen to 0.992 when three reagents were combined. Eight of the lysates exhibited mean absorbance values ranging from 0.992 to 0.915 with 7 out of 8 being lysate antigen combinations. Mean absorbance values with the other 6 lysates ranged from 0.899 to 0.588. In Trial 2, the 6 most sensitive reagents from Trial 1 were assayed against 10 highly reactive dog sera. The results of Trial 2 showed that 5 antigen combinations detected antibody to a greater degree than the individual lysate antigen. Combinations of northern and southern antigens were able to detect antibody in serum specimens from either of these geographical regions. Comparative studies are continuing to further evaluate various lysate antigen combinations for antibody detection in blastomycosis.
Highlights
The systemic fungal disease, blastomycosis, caused by Blastomyces dermatitidis, occurs in humans and other animals
Our laboratory has been concentrating on attempting to develop antigenic reagents from the yeast phase of various isolates of Blastomyces dermatitidis and to evaluate these lysate antigens with regard to antibody detection in blastomycosis. The aim of this current study was to evaluate yeast phase antigens prepared from four dog isolates of B. dermatitidis and to evaluate their efficacy, when used individually or in combination, for antibody detection in sera from dogs with blastomycosis
Yeast phase lysate reagents (T-58, dog Tennessee, T-66, dog Tennessee, WI-R, dog Wisconsin and WI-J, dog Wisconsin) were prepared by a method similar to one that was previously used for the production of antigen from Histoplasma capsulatum [29,30] and modified in our laboratory for B. dermatitidis lysate antigen production [18]
Summary
The systemic fungal disease, blastomycosis, caused by Blastomyces dermatitidis, occurs in humans and other animals. The disease is found mainly in the United States in southeastern, south-central and upper Midwestern states and the fungus exists as a soil saprophyte associated with slightly acidic soils and often found near a water source [1,2,3]. The thermally dimorphic organism exists in this stage in nature or in the laboratory at 25 ̊C and has the ability to convert to the yeast phase at 37 ̊C in the lungs of the infected host and produces a primary pulmonary infection. Blastomycosis may be self-resolving or produce an acute or chronic disease state in the lungs. In some cases the organism may disseminate to other organs including the central nervous system with the possible development of fatal meningitis [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
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