title: Molecular diagnosis of experimental Chagas disease.
abstract: Diagnostic methods for detecting Trypanosoma cruzi infection are important to allow administration of chemotherapy and as an experimental tool when trying to understand the pathogenesis of Chagas disease. A nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based approach was recently used to demonstrate preferential heart and skeletal muscle tropism in mice of a Mexican T. cruzi isolate. The authors of this study also demonstrated higher sensitivity for this PCR setup compared with a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 11N315, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. jandersson@niaid.nih.gov
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Andersson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D014355:Chagas Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000469:parasitology*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods; D006321:Heart / Q000469:parasitology; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; D009132:Muscles / Q000469:parasitology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018523:Tropism; D014349:Trypanosoma cruzi / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*