Detection of Trichinella-specific IgE in human Trichinellosis: Creating a new test

Trichinellosis is a parasitic disease of humans caused by the nematode from the genus Trichinella, predominantly Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis). If Trichinella infection is suspected, based on epidemiological link and clinical criteria within defined period of time, then finding of Trichinella-specific antibodies in the examined sera provides a definitive proof of the infection establishment. Detection of Trichinella-specific IgE that could precede, coincide or follow IgG seroconversion not only confirms the infection existence, but could narrow the time frame in which the infection took place to a year or even less. Since there are no commercially available tests for monitoring the Trichinella-specific IgE presence during the course of the disease, our work was aimed to establish this kind of ELISA test. Specificity and sensitivity of so far described Trichinella-specific IgE ELISAs are not satisfying enough; two major problems are poor discrimination between positive and negative results and cross reactivity with sera of patients with different parasitic diseases. In this study, we have developed Trichinella-specific IgE Capture ELISA that overcomes problems with specificity and sensitivity and enables determination of Trichinella-specific IgE.