Development of a near-care diagnostic test for Lyme disease

莱姆病是北美最常见的蜱传疾病。在加拿大各地，新的Lymedisease病例正在增加，这促使人们对这种疾病的认识有所提高，并提出了目前用于诊断的检测方法的问题。目前的测试依赖于检测患者血液中的抗体，这些抗体是对导致莱姆病的细菌产生的反应。由于这些抗体反应随着时间的推移而发展，并随感染程度而变化，因此该测试对于诊断早期感染可能存在问题，这可能会延迟抗生素治疗。最近，有一个推动力，以确定额外的非抗体莱姆病标记物用于诊断。这项研究将使用一种灵敏而强大的蛋白质发现方法来挖掘血液样本中的新的Lymedisease标志物。鉴定的蛋白质将用于开发用于检测Lymedisease的改进的测试。

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness in North America. New cases of Lymedisease are on the rise throughout Canada, which has prompted increased awareness of thedisease and raised issues with the currently available tests used for diagnosis. The currenttests rely on detection of antibodies found in the patients blood that are produced in responseto bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Because these antibody responses develop over timeand vary with degree of infection, the test can be problematic for diagnosing early infection,which may delay antibiotic therapy. Recently, there has been a push to identify additionalnon-antibody Lyme disease markers for use in diagnosis. This research will use a sensitiveand powerful protein discovery approach to mine blood samples for new markers of Lymedisease. The proteins identified will be used to develop an improved test for detecting Lymedisease.