title: A new IgG immunoblot kit for diagnosis of toxoplasmosis in pregnant women.
abstract: The determination of the accurate immune status of pregnant women is crucial in order to prevent congenital toxoplasmosis. Equivocal results with conventional serological techniques are not uncommon when IgG titers are close to the cut-off value of the test, so that a confirmatory technique is needed. For this purpose, we developed a homemade immunoblot (IB) using soluble extract of Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites and assessed it by testing 154 positive, 100 negative, and 123 equivocal sera obtained from pregnant women. In order to select the more valuable bands in terms of sensitivity and specificity, we used the Youden Index (YI). The highest YIs were those given by the 32, 36, 98, 21, and 33 bands. The simultaneous presence on the same blot of at least 3 bands showed a much higher YI (0.964) and was adapted as the positivity criterion. The analysis of results showed that our homemade IB correlated well with the commercial LDBIO Toxo II IgG® kit recently recommended as a confirmatory test (96.7% of concordance).
authors.affiliation: Research Unit, UR12SP34, Farhat Hached University Hospital, Ibn Jazzar Street, Sousse 4000, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Imen
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Khammari
authors.affiliation: Research Unit, UR12SP34, Farhat Hached University Hospital, Ibn Jazzar Street, Sousse 4000, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Fatma
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Saghrouni
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Medical Parasitology, Biotechnology and Biomolecules, LR 11 IPT06 Pasteur Institute of Tunis, 13 Place Pasteur, B.P. 74, 1002 Tunis, Belvédère, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Sami
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lakhal
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory of Medical Parasitology, Biotechnology and Biomolecules, LR 11 IPT06 Pasteur Institute of Tunis, 13 Place Pasteur, B.P. 74, 1002 Tunis, Belvédère, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Aida
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bouratbine
authors.affiliation: Research Unit, UR12SP34, Farhat Hached University Hospital, Ibn Jazzar Street, Sousse 4000, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Moncef
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ben Said
authors.affiliation: Research Unit, UR12SP34, Farhat Hached University Hospital, Ibn Jazzar Street, Sousse 4000, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Jalel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Boukadida
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood* / Q000276:immunology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; D014123:Toxoplasmosis / Q000175:diagnosis*
chemical_list: D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic
keywords: Toxoplasma gondii; immunoblot; serodiagnosis; soluble tachyzoite antigen; toxoplasmosis