title: Field utility of phenolic glycolipid coated latex agglutination test for rapid detection of bacilliferous leprosy cases.
abstract: Serum samples were collected from eighty-three leprosy patients and twenty-five healthy controls supposedly not exposed to Mycobacterium leprae infection. Phenolic glycolipid-1 coated latex agglutination test (PGL-LAT) was carried out with the serum samples to detect antibodies specific to M. leprae. Samples showing positive agglutination were 50% in the lepromatous leprosy (LL) group showing no erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL) complications, 66.6% in LL group with ENL complication, 60% in borderline lepromatous (BL) group, 50% in borderline (BB) and 33.3% in borderline tuberculoid (BT). The patients belonging to the tuberculoid (TT) group and most of the long-term treated patients were interestingly negative, and so were sera from all the healthy controls. PGL-LAT developed by us therefore is specific and a fairly sensitive technique to detect antibodies specific to M. leprae and will be very useful in field conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vaishnavi
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Agnihotri
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: N K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Ganguly
mesh_terms: D000372:Agglutination Tests / Q000379:methods; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000276:immunology; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D006017:Glycolipids; D006801:Humans; D007840:Latex; D007918:Leprosy / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008863:Microspheres; D009166:Mycobacterium leprae / Q000276:immunology*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D006017:Glycolipids; D007840:Latex; C045169:phenolic glycolipid I, Mycobacterium leprae