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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Jun 1995, 1479-1485, Vol 33, No. 6
Copyright © 1995 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis by immunoblotting and relationship with other methods

BF Chumpitazi, A Boussaid, H Pelloux, C Racinet, M Bost and A Goullier-Fleuret
Departement de Parasitologie Mycologie Medicale et Moleculaire, Universite Joseph Fourier-Grenoble I, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, La Tronche, France.

Immunoblot has been evaluated as a diagnostic method for congenital toxoplasmosis. Like enzyme-linked immunofiltration assay (ELIFA), immunoblot can be used to compare antibody patterns and to determine if the antibodies are transmitted by the mother or synthesized by the fetus or infant. Among the 48 infants tested, 27 had congenital toxoplasmosis and 21 were suspected but had none. Reproducibility, sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive values in immunoblot for immunoglobulins (Igs) G+M+A and/or G+M were 90, 92.6, 89.1, and 92.4%, respectively. G+M immunoblot and G+M ELIFA have better sensitivities than the conventional IgM immunosorbent agglutination assay, IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), IgM immunofluorescence antibody test, in vitro culture, and mouse inoculation. The novel antibodies, i.e., those synthesized by infants against Toxoplasma gondii, were of the IgG class in most cases, although a confident diagnosis could be related to the number of observed Ig classes (G+M, G+A, and G+M+A). Immunoblot has a better resolution than ELIFA. In prenatal diagnosis, immunoblot could be complementary to in vitro culture and mouse inoculation. In the other cases, early detection by immunoblot appears to give the best results when compared with the other serological methods.

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