01947nas a2200277   4500000000100000008004100001260001300042653002600055653002700081653002400108653001100132653002800143653001200171653002100183653002500204100001400229700001600243700001400259700001500273245014400288856007800432300001100510490000700521520112700528022001401655       1990                            d  c1990 Dec10aAntibodies, Bacterial10aAntibodies, Monoclonal10aAntigens, Bacterial10aHumans10aImmunoradiometric Assay10aleprosy10aMolecular Weight10aMycobacterium leprae1 aPatil S A1 aGirdhar B K1 aSingh K P1 aSengupta U00aDetection of Mycobacterium leprae antigens in the sera of leprosy patients by sandwich immunoradiometric assay using monoclonal antibodies.  uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC268275/pdf/jcm00060-0218.pdf  a2792-60 v283 a<p>An immunological technique for demonstration of Mycobacterium leprae antigen in sera was developed by using specific as well as cross-reactive monoclonal antibodies. The sandwich immunoradiometric assay which we developed is a simple, robust assay that is sensitive to the nanogram level. Sera from 72 leprosy patients were screened for the presence of antigen by this assay. A total of 69% of untreated tuberculoid leprosy patients showed 35-kDa antigen positivity, and 45% of these patients showed anti-35-kDa antibody positivity. Consistently higher antigen positivity rates for the 35-, 12-, and 30- to 40-kDa components of M. leprae were observed in lepromatous leprosy patients than in tuberculoid leprosy patients. During the course of therapy the antigen positivity rate gradually declined, and the antigen could not be detected in any of the 15 patients with subsided cases of leprosy. As antigen is presumably in excess before the antibody response is evoked, our experimental approach for antigen detection is likely to be useful by itself or along with antibody detection for diagnosis of early leprosy.</p>  a0095-1137