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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2001, p. 1721-1730, Vol. 39, No. 5
Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology,
University of Würzburg, Würzburg,1
Klinikum Großhadern3 and
Max von Pettenkofer-Institute for Hygiene and Medical
Microbiology,4 LMU Munich, Munich, and
Robert Koch Institute, Berlin,2 Germany
Received 27 December 2000/Returned for modification 25 January
2001/Accepted 19 February 2001
During human infection, Aspergillus fumigatus secretes
a 18-kDa protein that can be detected as an immunodominant antigen in
the urine of infected patients. Recently, this protein was shown to be
mitogillin, a ribotoxin that cleaves a single phosphodiester bond of
the 29S rRNA of eukaryotic ribosomes. We proved the immunogenic capacity of mitogillin in a rabbit animal model, indicating its usefulness as an antigen for serological diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. The mitogillin gene from A. fumigatus was
transferred from plasmid pMIT+ to expression vector pQE30 and expressed
in Escherichia coli as a fusion protein. Purified
recombinant mitogillin was recognized by serum immunoglobulin G (IgG)
of polyclonal rabbit sera that were obtained by immunization with
purified native mitogillin. Consequently, we developed an enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay for detection of IgG, IgM, and IgA antibodies to
recombinant mitogillin. In serum samples of patients suffering from
aspergilloma (AO; n = 32), invasive pulmonary
aspergillosis (IPA; n = 42), or invasive disseminated
aspergillosis (IDA; n = 40), a good correlation of production of IgG antibody against mitogillin and clinical disease was
observed (for patients with AO, 100% [32 of 32] were positive; for
patients with IPA, 64% [31 of 42] were positive; for patients with
IDA, 60% [24 of 40] were positive). In contrast, positive titers for
serum IgG and IgM antibodies against mitogillin were found in only
1.3% of the serum samples of healthy volunteers and positive titers
for IgA antibody were found in only 1.0% of the serum samples of
healthy volunteers (n = 307; specificity = 95.4%).
These results indicate that recombinant mitogillin expressed in
E. coli can be used for improvement of the
serodiagnosis of A. fumigatus-associated diseases.
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.5.1721-1730.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Use of Recombinant Mitogillin for Improved
Serodiagnosis of Aspergillus fumigatus-Associated
Diseases

and
*
Corresponding author. Present address: Abteilung
Bakteriologie der Universität Göttingen, Kreuzbergring 57, 37075 Göttingen, Germany. Phone: 49-551397099. Fax: 49-551395861. E-mail: mweig{at}gwdg.de.
Present address: Abteilung Bakteriologie der Universität
Göttingen, 37075 Göttingen, Germany.
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