Effective diagnosis of human Toxoplasmosis using superparamagnetic nanoparticles by ELISA technique / Amal Mahfouz Abdelreheim ; Supervised Azza Mohamed Elamir , Noha Ahmed Mahana , Alyaa Ahmed Farid

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Zoology

Parasitic diseases have a great impact in human health. The gold standard for the diagnosis of the majority of parasitic infections is still conventional microscopy, which presents important limitations in terms of sensitivity and specificity and commonly requires highly trained technicians. More accurate technique, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) conjugated with anti-Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) polyclonal antibody (pAb) was evaluated to increase the sensitivity and specificity of antigen detection assay (sandwich-ELISA and dot-ELISA) for diagnosing human T. gondii infection. In the present study, T. gondii SAG2 antigen was purified (37 KDa) and anti-SAG2 IgG pAb was prepared in rabbits. T. gondii SAG2 antigen was early detected in control and patient sera using nanogold sandwich and nanogold dot-ELISA. Two different nanogold ELISA showed a higher significant sensitivity (94% and 98%) and specificity (96% and 96%) in comparison to normal sandwich and dot-ELISA which showed 92% and 96% sensitivity and 90% and 94% specificity, respectively. From all recorded data and with consideration to sandwich and dot-ELISA assays, nanogold-sandwich and nanogold dot-ELISA assay have a promising and important value as an applicable, fast and accurate diagnostic technique for toxoplasmosis

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