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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Mar 1997, 591-595, Vol 35, No. 3
Copyright © 1997 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Screening for active toxoplasmosis in patients by DNA hybridization with the ABGTg7 probe in blood samples

SO Angel, M Matrajt, J Margarit, M Nigro, E Illescas, V Pszenny, MR Amendoeira, E Guarnera and JC Garberi
Departamento Parasitologia, Instituto Nacional de Microbiologia Dr. Carlos G. Malbran, CP 1281, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

We report the potential use of a specific Toxoplasma gondii DNA probe (ABGTg7). We applied a dot blot hybridization assay to blood samples for the diagnosis of cerebral toxoplasmosis (CT), acute toxoplasmic lymphadenopathy (ATL), and disseminated toxoplasmosis in transplant recipients (TRs). We studied a total of 84 individuals: 38 patients and 46 controls. We found positive hybridization signals for 12 (66.7%) of 18 patients with confirmed CT, 9 (52.9%) of 17 patients with ATL, and 2 (66.7%) of 3 TRs. PCR assays were performed in parallel for patients with ATL, resulting in T. gondii DNA detection for 10 patients (58.8%). A comparative study between dot blot and PCR assays performed with the blood of mice that had been experimentally infected with tachyzoites gave similar results: 60 and 70% positive results, respectively. Finally, the sum of positive values obtained by both DNA tests (dot blot assay plus PCR) increased the rate of positivity for ATL patients to 76.4%. These results demonstrate that the T. gondii ABGTg7 repetitive DNA element is an additional useful resource for diagnosing Toxoplasma parasitemia in patients with CT and ATL and in TRs. Thus, our ABGTg7-based dot blot test may lead to an improvement in T. gondii detection methods in patients with acute toxoplasmosis.

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• Martin, V., Arcavi, M., Santillan, G., Amendoeira, M. R. R., De Souza Neves, E., Griemberg, G., Guarnera, E., Garberi, J. C., Angel, S. O. (1998). Detection of Human Toxoplasma-Specific Immunoglobulins A, M, and G with a Recombinant Toxoplasma gondii Rop2 Protein. CVI 5: 627-631 [Abstract] [Full Text]