Skip to main content
Journal of Clinical Microbiology logoLink to Journal of Clinical Microbiology
. 1987 Dec;25(12):2278–2280. doi: 10.1128/jcm.25.12.2278-2280.1987

Identification of a common immunodominant protein in culture filtrates of three Nocardia species and use in etiologic diagnosis of mycetoma.

A M Angeles 1, A M Sugar 1
PMCID: PMC269470  PMID: 3323223

Abstract

Diagnosis of systemic nocardiosis has been hampered by difficulty in the rapid isolation and identification of the organism and by the frequent need for invasive biopsies. We show that a 55,000-Mr protein previously found in Nocardia asteroides is also present in N. brasiliensis and N. caviae culture filtrates. We also used the antigen in a dot blot assay to identify patients infected with N. brasiliensis. Sera from patients with mycetoma secondary to N. brasiliensis (n = 6) or Actinomadura madurae (n = 2) and 10 hospitalized controls were tested. Six (100%) of the sera from the patients with nocardial mycetoma had positive dot blots to purified antigen, whereas all 10 of the control sera were negative. Serum from one of two patients infected with A. madurae also reacted with the antigen. Thus, the 55-kilodalton protein appears to be produced by three medically important species of Nocardia and is useful when used in an immunoblot assay for identifying patients infected with these organisms.

Full text

PDF
2278

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Angeles A. M., Sugar A. M. Rapid diagnosis of nocardiosis with an enzyme immunoassay. J Infect Dis. 1987 Feb;155(2):292–296. doi: 10.1093/infdis/155.2.292. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Blumer S. O., Kaufman L. Microimmunodiffusion test for nocardiosis. J Clin Microbiol. 1979 Sep;10(3):308–312. doi: 10.1128/jcm.10.3.308-312.1979. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bradford M. M. A rapid and sensitive method for the quantitation of microgram quantities of protein utilizing the principle of protein-dye binding. Anal Biochem. 1976 May 7;72:248–254. doi: 10.1006/abio.1976.9999. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Humphreys D. W., Crowder J. G., White A. Serological reactions to Nocardia antigens. Am J Med Sci. 1975 May-Jun;269(3):323–326. doi: 10.1097/00000441-197505000-00005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Laemmli U. K. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4. Nature. 1970 Aug 15;227(5259):680–685. doi: 10.1038/227680a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Shainhouse J. Z., Pier A. C., Stevens D. A. Complement fixation antibody test for human nocardiosis. J Clin Microbiol. 1978 Nov;8(5):516–519. doi: 10.1128/jcm.8.5.516-519.1978. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Sugar A. M., Schoolnik G. K., Stevens D. A. Antibody response in human nocardiosis: identification of two immunodominant culture-filtrate antigens derived from Nocardia asteroides. J Infect Dis. 1985 May;151(5):895–901. doi: 10.1093/infdis/151.5.895. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Clinical Microbiology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES