01942nas a2200205   4500000000100000008004100001260005200042653001200094653002400106653001800130100002100148700002200169700002000191700002000211245006700231856008300298300001000381490000800391520133700399       2011                            d  bAmerican Association of ImmunologistsaBethesda10aleprosy10aMycobacteria leprae10aSerodiagnosis1 aEstrada-Garcia I1 aTalavera-Paulin M1 aSerafin-Lopez J1 aEstrada-Parra S00aIdentifcation of new antigen targets for leprosy serodiagnosis  uhttp://jimmunol.org//cgi/content/meeting_abstract/186/1_MeetingAbstracts/99.24  a99.240 v1863 aMycobacterium leprae , a non-cultivable bacteria, is the causative agent of leprosy. Despite huge effort from WHO leprosy remains a public health problems in some parts of the world. One of the principal goals of leprosy research is to develop serological tests that will allow identification and early treatment of leprosy patients. In this work, M. habana a cultivable non-pathogenic mycobacterium and candidate vaccine for leprosy, was used to obtain soluble antigenic extracts (MHSE). By Western blot (WB) analysis MHSE proteins were reacted with sera form lepromatous leprosy patients (LL), active tuberculosis patients (TB) and healthy donors (H) from an endemic leprosy area. LL sera diluted 1:2,000 showed reactivity with a 28-30 KDa doublet antigen in MHSE. No reactivity with these bands was observed at 1:2,000 or lower sera dilutions of TB or H donors. After performing two dimension PAGE and WB analysis with the same sera, the doublet band was shown to have several spots. Further characterization was done using Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS) and two proteins were identified: enoyl- coenzyme A hydratase (lipid metabolism) and antigen 85B (Ag85B, mycolyltransferase). These proteins represent promising candidates for the design of a reliable tool for the serodiagnosis of the infectious form of leprosy.