Event Abstract Back to Event Serological reactivity of Mycobacterium leprae recombinant protein and potencial application for diagnosis of leprosy. Lucia A. Fraga1*, Pedro Marcal1, Patricia Zandim1 and Henrique Teixeira1 1 Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil Leprosy is a chronic infectious and a curable disease. Despite the implementation of multidrug therapy, it remains a serious public health problem. The clinical form of the disease is characterized by dermatoneurological spectrum changes with different immune response patterns. Until now, the diagnosis of leprosy has been based on dermatoneurological examination complemented with smear microscopy and with histopathology. These steps hinder the early diagnosis. The development of specific and sensitive serologic test is of fundamental importance for early diagnosis of the disease, preventing the disease transmission and the sequelae onset. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the serum samples from leprosy patients, subjects in contact with clinical leprosy and healthy subjects for reactivity against four specific recombinant proteins of Mycobacterium leprae (ML0405, ML2055, ML2331 and Ag85B) using Elisa test. The results showed that the group of multibacillary patients had higher IgG production compared to the healthy control and paucibacillary groups for all tested antigens. The group of subjects in contact with multibacillary leprosy showed higher production of specific IgG antibodies to the ML2055 and ML0405 antigens compared to the healthy control group. Serum IgM levels to both ML2055 and Ag85B antigens were higher in the MB contact group compared to the CS group. The IgM antibody levels of the multibacillary group were higher than the levels of the healthy control group only for the ML2331 antigen. Levels of specific antibodies against the ML0405 antigen decreased after the implementation of multidrug therapy. Our results suggest that a serologic test using the ML0405, ML2331, ML2055 and Ag85B antigens could be developed as an additional test for the diagnosis of leprosy. The control of specific antibody levels for ML0405 could be used as an effective marker for monitoring the treatment progress. Acknowledgements Financial Support: FAPEMIG – Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa de Minas Gerais. Keywords: Leprosy, recombinant protein, Seroreactivity, Antibody IgG, antibody IgM, Mycobacterium leprae Conference: IMMUNOCOLOMBIA2015 - 11th Congress of the Latin American Association of Immunology - 10o. Congreso de la Asociación Colombiana de Alergia, Asma e Inmunología, Medellin, Colombia, 13 Oct - 16 Oct, 2015. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Infectious and parasitic diseases Citation: Fraga LA, Marcal P, Zandim P and Teixeira H (2015). Serological reactivity of Mycobacterium leprae recombinant protein and potencial application for diagnosis of leprosy.. Front. Immunol. Conference Abstract: IMMUNOCOLOMBIA2015 - 11th Congress of the Latin American Association of Immunology - 10o. Congreso de la Asociación Colombiana de Alergia, Asma e Inmunología. doi: 10.3389/conf.fimmu.2015.05.00162 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 02 Jun 2015; Published Online: 14 Sep 2015. * Correspondence: PhD. Lucia A Fraga, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, luciaalvesfraga@yahoo.com.br Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Lucia A Fraga Pedro Marcal Patricia Zandim Henrique Teixeira Google Lucia A Fraga Pedro Marcal Patricia Zandim Henrique Teixeira Google Scholar Lucia A Fraga Pedro Marcal Patricia Zandim Henrique Teixeira PubMed Lucia A Fraga Pedro Marcal Patricia Zandim Henrique Teixeira Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.