NOVEL PEPTIDE DIAGNOSTICS FOR LYME DISEASE

描述(改编自申请人的摘要)：莱姆病是 美国最常见的媒介传播疾病，有超过 每年报告的病例有10,000例。被扁虱叮咬的人感染了 伯氏疏螺旋体可能发展为破坏性关节炎，不可逆转 神经问题和心脏传导缺陷。这种疾病是 如果早期诊断正确，可以用抗生素治疗，但 目前可用的诊断试剂不足以准确地 诊断。这个项目的长期目标是使用噬菌体展示 基于“表位发现”的方法来识别新的多肽 用作莱姆病的诊断试剂。事先不知道 需要与疾病相关的抗原；取而代之的是来自 莱姆病患者将被用来亲和选择 与莱姆病特异性抗体发生反应。表位的发现已经被 在模型系统中进行了成功的测试；本项目将 表示首次尝试使用它来开发 真正需要临床试剂治疗的疾病。 这项提议的具体目标是：1)发现结合多肽 特别是与莱姆病患者中发现的抗体有关，以及2) 开发这种用于诊断的多肽。

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the applicant's abstract): Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, with more than 10,000 reported cases per year. People bitten by ticks infected with Borrelia burgdorferi may develop destructive arthritis, irreversible neurological problems and cardiac conduction defects. The disease is treatable with antibiotics if properly diagnosed at an early stage, but currently available diagnostic reagents are not sufficient for accurate diagnosis. The long term goal of this project is to use a phage display based approach called "epitope discovery" to identify novel peptides for use as diagnostic reagents against Lyme disease. No prior knowledge of antigens association with the disease is required; instead, sera from patients with Lyme disease will be used to affinity-select peptides that react with Lyme disease specific antibodies. Epitope discovery has been successfully tested in a model system; the present project would represent the first attempt to use it to develop diagnostics for a disease for which clinical reagents are truly needed. The specific aims of the proposal are: 1) to discover peptides that bind specifically to antibodies found in patients with Lyme disease, and 2) to develop such peptides for use as diagnostics.