Regarding how quickly changes in
recognition of HSP20 occur, we observe heterogeneous results in our patient’s population. These observations can reflect various factors, including antigenic stimulus, host genetic factors, cyst status, and the number of albendazole cycles or surgery. The Idasanutlin cell line incidence of relapse increases with the length of follow-up (17,18). As the monitoring imaging findings during follow-up can be difficult, the events seen in ultrasound need to be matched more closely to immunological events because cysts often undergo relatively small changes that imaging cannot visualise (7). In our preliminary results, HSP20 demonstrated a very good performance as antigen marker for the serological follow-up of human
CE, by contrast to specific antibodies against hydatid fluid and AgB, that remain at high levels over long periods of time after curing (19). As we found weak percentage of patients with CE positive in HSP20-IB, we suggest that more work needs to elucidate the diagnostic potential of E. granulosus HSP20. We postulate that the different antibody specificity showed by the 34 and 50 kDa bands can be explained by the presence of conformational epitopes belonging to the same antigenic molecule in our experimental conditions (polymerisation). As the antibody response to HSP20 could fluctuate over time, the feasibility of quantitative find more antibody measurement, such as ELISA, will be addressed in future investigations. It will also be interesting to assess the performance of HSP20 in comparison with other antigens that have been suggested for similar purposes, such
as recP29 (20) and B2t (21). We might anticipate a synergistic outcome by combination of such tools. In conclusion, a comprehensive strategy of proteomic identification combined with further immunological validation appears to provide very useful information on the host–parasite relationship and its associate proteins ensuring the development of novel E. granulosus biomarkers. The identification of panels of parasite PRKD3 antigens that elicit an antibody response may have utility in CE screening, diagnosis or in establishing prognosis, and in immunotherapy against the disease. This work was supported by a research grant from the Italian Ministry of Health (Project n°. 8ABF/8). “
“Type 1 diabetes is associated with T-cell responses to β-cell antigens such as GAD65. Single T-cell epitopes have been investigated for immune monitoring with some success, but multiple epitopes may be required to fully characterize responses in all subjects. We used a systematic approach to examine the diversity of the GAD65-specific T-cell repertoire in subjects with DRB1*04:01 haplotypes. Using class II tetramers, we observed responses to 15 GAD65 epitopes, including five novel epitopes. The majority were confirmed to be processed and presented.