title: A quantitative cell-ELISA for alpha-galactose specific antibodies in human malaria.
abstract: Naturally occurring antibodies to alpha-linked galactose (anti- gal) has been reported to be present in large quantities in normal human sera and they seem to play an important role in a variety of infectious as well as autoimmune diseases. A cell-ELISA using glutaraldehyde fixed normal rabbit erythrocytes was developed for quantification of anti-gal in human sera. This assay was compared with three other(commonly used) immunoassays viz. a) agglutination b) enhanced agglutination and c) lipid ELISA-assays for detection of anti-gal in human sera. The cell-ELISA was found to be the most sensitive assay followed by lipid-ELISA, enhanced agglutination and agglutination assay in decreasing order. Anti-gal affinity purified through a column of melibiose-agarose was tested by cell-ELISA. Monolayers of RRBC pre-treated with alpha-galactosidase was not reactive while in monolayers treated with beta-galactosidase, the anti-gal reactivity was comparable to those in untreated RRBC monolayer, thus indicating the high specificity of cell-ELISA for detection of antibodies to alpha-linked galactose.
authors.affiliation: Division of Applied Immunology, Regional Medical Research Centre, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar, India.
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Satapathy
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ravindran
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000906:Antibodies / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005690:Galactose / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D005690:Galactose