CIRCULATING PARASITE ANTIGENS IN FILARIASIS

淋巴丝虫病和盘尾丝虫病（河盲症）正在变形 寄生虫病影响着热带地区数百万人。这 建议解决的核心问题的诊断和定量的 丝虫感染我们的实验室已经开发出了敏感和特异的 基于寄生虫检测的几种丝虫感染的新测试 血液中的产品（循环丝虫抗原）或检测人类 重组寄生虫蛋白的抗体。该提案描述了一个 一项雄心勃勃的研究计划，以继续和扩大这一重要工作。 I.人丝虫病的循环寄生虫抗原： 这些研究将集中在W.班氏抗原检测 用新的多中心方法研究丝虫病流行病学的基本问题 班氏病感染率、强度和疾病研究 丝虫病和无微丝蚴血症W.班氏 在“抗原阳性地方病正常人”中的感染。“重大进展 在O.肠扭转，B. B. malayi和L. loa。需要进一步的研究来实际开发 用于这些感染的有用的抗原测定。 二.用于丝虫病的基于重组抗原的抗体测定： 盘尾丝虫病研究将测试基于人群的血清集，以确定 基于重组体OC 3.6、9.3和OVICF的新检测方法对于 评估地方性和检测未发现感染， 孩子我们也将继续研究开发和验证抗体 用于诊断布氏丝虫感染和临床淋巴 抗原试验阴性的无微丝蚴血症者的丝虫病。

Lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are deforming parasitic diseases that affect millions of people in the tropics. This proposal addresses the central issues of diagnosis and quantitation of filarial infections. Our laboratory has developed sensitive and specific new tests for several filarial infections based on detection of parasite products in blood (circulating filarial antigens) or detection of human antibodies to recombinant parasite proteins. This proposal describes an ambitious research program to continue and expand this important work. I. CIRCULATING PARASITE ANTIGENS IN HUMAN FILARIASIS: These studies will focus on the use of W. bancrofti antigen detection to study basic issues in filariasis epidemiology with a new multicenter study of infection prevalence, intensity, and disease in bancroftian filariasis and additional studies of amicrofilaremic W. bancrofti infections in "antigen-positive endemic normals." Significant progress has been made in the study of circulating antigens of O. volvulus, B. malayi, and L. loa. Additional studies are needed to develop practically useful antigen assays for these infections. II. RECOMBINANT ANTIGEN-BASED ANTIBODY ASSAYS FOR FILARIASIS: Onchocerciasis studies will test population-based serum sets to determine the value of new assays based on recombinants OC3.6, 9.3, and OVICF for assessing endemicity and for detection of prepatent infections in children. We will also continue studies to develop and validate antibody assays for diagnosis of Brugia infections and clinical lymphatic filariasis in amicrofilaremic persons with negative antigen tests.