@article{7167,
  keywords = {Ambulatory Care Facilities, Antibodies, Bacterial, Bacterial Proteins, Diagnosis, Differential, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Filtration, Humans, India, leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae, Recombinant Proteins, Sensitivity and Specificity},
  author = {Parkash O and Kumar A and Nigam A and Girdhar B},
  title = {Detection of antibodies against Mycobacterium leprae culture filtrate protein-10 in leprosy patients.},
  abstract = {<p>The prevalence of IgG antibodies against Mycobacterium leprae recombinant culture filtrate protein-10 (rCFP-10) was investigated in serum samples from 56 leprosy patients, 15 tuberculosis (TB) patients, 14 other skin-diseased patients and 20 healthy subjects. On classifying the patients into bacterial index (BI)-positive and BI-negative groups, the assay showed 83.3 % (15/18) sensitivity for detection of BI-positive leprosy patients. On the other hand, the sensitivity for detection of BI-negative patients was 18.4 % (7/38). None of the 15 TB patients and 14 other skin-diseased patients was positive; however, only one out of 20 healthy individuals was positive, indicating that antibody response to culture filtrate protein-10 (CFP-10) was highly specific (98.0 %; 48/49). Statistically, the performance of the CFP-10-based assay was found to be comparable (P>0.05) with that of an anti-phenolic glycolipid-I (PGL-I) antibody-detecting assay. Thus, M. leprae CFP-10 is potentially a specific antigen for measuring antibody response in BI-positive leprosy patients. Being a secreted antigen, CFP-10 may act as a marker for the viability of M. leprae inside the host, and hence its serological potential is worth exploring for application in monitoring the response of patients with BI-positive leprosy (a highly infectious form) during the course of chemotherapy. When comparing the bacteriological and serological results, an agreement of 82.1 % showed that seropositivity to M. leprae CFP-10 corresponded well with bacteriological criteria. Hence, CFP-10 seems to be a suitable antigen for classification of leprosy patients into BI-positive and BI-negative groups.</p>},
  year = {2006},
  journal = {Journal of medical microbiology},
  volume = {55},
  pages = {1337-41},
  month = {2006 Oct},
  issn = {0022-2615},
  doi = {10.1099/jmm.0.46587-0},
  language = {eng},
}