Serodiagnosis of recently acquired Toxoplasma gondii infection in pregnant women using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays with a recombinant dense granule GRA6 protein

Abstract

Indirect immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) with a recombinant GRA6 protein of Toxoplasma gondii were developed and evaluated for accurate diagnosis of recently acquired infection in pregnant women. According to the results from Toxoplasma serodiagnostic tests, women were classified into 3 groups representing acute (group I), chronic (group II), or no Toxoplasma infection (group III). To discriminate group I from group II sera, the GRA6–IgG-ELISA reached sensitivity and specificity of 87.5% and 94.1%, respectively. Although 22 (91.7%) of 24 group I sera were positive by the GRA6–IgM-ELISA, only 1 (2.9%) of 34 group II sera scored positive. The GRA6–IgM-ELISA displayed a meaningful correlation with Vidas Toxo IgM and exhibited higher specificity (97.1%) than Euroimmun IgM ELISA (88.2%) (Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany) for detection of recent infection. These results demonstrate that IgG and IgM ELISA with rGRA6 are useful to identify and discriminate recent from past Toxoplasma infection in pregnant women.