title: Evaluation of major membrane protein-I as a serodiagnostic tool of pauci-bacillary leprosy.
abstract: We have previously shown that the serodiagnosis using major membrane protein-II (MMP-II) is quite efficient in diagnosing leprosy. However, the detection rate of pauci-bacillary (PB) leprosy patients is still low. In this study, we examined the usefulness of major membrane protein-I (MMP-I) from Mycobacterium leprae. The MMP-I-based serodiagnosis did not show significantly high detection rate. However, when the mixture of MMP-I and MMP-II antigens was used, we detected 94.4% of multi-bacillary leprosy and 39.7% of PB patients. There were little correlation between the titers of anti-MMP-I antibodies (Abs) and that of anti-MMP-II Abs in PB patients' sera. Ten out of 46 MMP-II-negative PB leprosy patients were MMP-I positive, so that the detection rate of PB leprosy patient increased from 39.7% to 53.8% by taking either test positive strategy. We concluded that MMP-I can complement the MMP-II-based serodiagnosis of leprosy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mycobacteriology, Leprosy Research Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 4-2-1 Aoba-cho, Higashimurayama, Tokyo, 189-0002, Japan. Electronic address: ytsuka@nih.go.jp.
authors.forename: Yumiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsukamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Mycobacteriology, Leprosy Research Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 4-2-1 Aoba-cho, Higashimurayama, Tokyo, 189-0002, Japan.
authors.forename: Yumi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.affiliation: Department of Mycobacteriology, Leprosy Research Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 4-2-1 Aoba-cho, Higashimurayama, Tokyo, 189-0002, Japan.
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Makino
mesh_terms: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood*; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000276:immunology; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000276:immunology; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D056005:Leprosy, Paucibacillary / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012698:Serologic Tests / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; C096218:MMPI protein, Mycobacterium leprae
keywords: Leprosy; Major membrane protein-I; Serodiagnosis