Eufrosina Setsu Umezawa

TL;DR: The TESA blot seems to be useful as a sensitive and specific diagnostic assay in cases of suspected acute or congenital T. cruzi infection and as a general confirmatory test for conventional Chagas' disease serology.

TL;DR: This work indicates antigens that are likely to prove most useful in serological tests of recombinant T. cruzi proteins and synthetic peptides, and some are already on the market.

TL;DR: Five commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, one in-house ELISA, and two hemagglutination assays were evaluated to determine their diagnostic accuracy for Chagas' disease in two studies, finding kits using recombinant antigens or synthetic peptides are more specific than those using crude extracts from Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote forms.

TL;DR: Biochemical and electron microscopic data strongly suggest that most of the surface antigens from tissue culture-derived trypomastigotes from Trypanosoma cruzi are released as plasma membrane vesicles, ranging from 20 to 80 nm in diameter.

TL;DR: It is proposed that a mixture of a few T. cruzi recombinant antigens should be employed in a diagnostic kit to minimize individual variation and promote high sensitivity in the diagnosis of Chagas’ disease.