New quick and quality Lyme Test

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From the June 16th Journal of  Clinical and Vaccine Immunology


In the spirit of qualifying for some karma,  I wish to thank Lyme Disease News for inspiring me to look this up  this abstract. 
Instances in bold were added by me for significance. The explanations in italics were also added by me from Wikipedia.

Rapid, simple, quantitative, and highly sensitive antibody detection for lyme disease.

Burbelo PD, Issa AT, Ching KH, Cohen JI, Iadarola MJ, Marques A.

Neurobiology and Pain Therapeutics Section, 49 Convent Drive, Building 49, Room 1C20, NIDCR, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892-4410, USA. burbelop@nidcr.nih.gov

Abstract
There is currently a need for improved serological tests for the diagnosis and monitoring of Lyme disease, an infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi. In the present study, we evaluated luciferase (Luciferase is a generic term for the class of oxidative enzymes used in bioluminescence and is distinct from a photoprotein)  immunoprecipitation systems (LIPSs) for use for profiling of the antibody responses to a panel of B. burgdorferi proteins for the diagnosis of Lyme disease.

 Initially, serum samples from a cohort of patients and controls (n = 46) were used for training and were profiled by the use of 15 different B. burgdorferi antigen (a molecule recognized by the immune system) constructs. For the patient sera, the antibody (antibodies [also known as immunoglobulins, abbreviated Ig] are gamma globulin proteins that are found in blood or other bodily fluids of vertebrates, and are used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects, such as bacteria and viruses) responses to several B. burgdorferi antigens, including VlsE, flagellin (FlaB), BmpA, DbpA, and DbpB, indicated that the antigens had high levels of immunoreactivity. However, the best diagnostic performance was achieved with a synthetic protein, designated VOVO, consisting of a repeated antigenic peptide sequence, VlsE-OspC-VlsE-OspC,

Analysis of an independent set of serum samples (n = 139) used for validation showed that the VOVO LIPS test had 98% sensitivity (95% confidence interval [CI], 93% to 100%; P < 0.0001) and 100% specificity (95% CI, 94% to 100%; P < 0.0001). Similarly, the C6 peptide enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) also had 98% sensitivity (95% CI, 93% to 100%; P < 0.0001) and 98% specificity (95% CI, 90% to 100%; P < 0.0001).

Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the rates of detection of Lyme disease by the LIPS test and the C6 ELISA were not statistically different. However, the VOVO LIPS test displayed a wide dynamic range of antibody detection spanning over 10,000-fold without the need for serum dilution.

These results suggest that screening by the LIPS test with VOVO and other B. burgdorferi antigens offers an efficient quantitative approach for evaluation of the antibody responses in patients with Lyme disease.
PMID: 20392886 [PubMed - in process]

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