Table 1.
Summary of Elispot-based research applied to key tropical disease issues. In the fields of diagnosis and prognosis, even though the use of Elispot is widespread for the study of Dengue, bacterial infections and some mycosis, the diagnostic/prognostic value of Elispot in other diseases such as helminthiasis and protozoan diseases remains to be explored. Despite the fact that Elispot has proven to be a valuable tool for studies of pathogenesis and in the development of vaccines against tropical diseases, it has been little applied to emerging and re-emerging diseases such as Zika, Chikungunya, Yaws and Cholera. Lastly, the epitope identification by different Elispot approaches is present in most diverse scenarios of tropical diseases studies.
| Diagnosis/Prognosis | Pathogenesis | Vaccine development | Epitope identification | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protozoan diseases | ||||
| Malaria | - | [12,13,14,25,26] | [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22] | [23,24] |
| Toxoplasmosis | - | [27,30] | - | [28,29] |
| Chagas disease | - | [36] | - | [31,32,33,34,35] |
| Leishmaniasis | [43] | [42] | [39,41] | [40] |
| Tropical Arboviroses | ||||
| Dengue fever | [45,52,55,56,70] | [47,48,49,50,51,53] | [65,68] | [57,58,59,60,61,62,63,69] |
| Zika | - | - | - | [72] |
| Chikungunya | - | [73,74] | - | - |
| Yellow fever | - | - | [75,76,77] | [77] |
| Bacterial diseases | ||||
| Tuberculosis | [80,81,85,87,89,90] | [83,84] | [83] | [83] |
| Leprosy | [89,90] | [88] | - | - |
| Yaws | [91,92] | - | - | - |
| Cholera | [94] | - | - | [93] |
| Helminthiasis | ||||
| Schistosomiasis | - | [102] | [99,100] | - |
| Ancylostomiasis | - | [103,104] | - | - |
| Mycosis | ||||
| Candidiasis | [117,118] | [109,110,111,112,116] | [115] | [113,114] |
| Cryptoccocosis | [119,120] | - | - | - |
| Sporotrichosis | - | [121] | - | - |
| Mucormycosis | - | [122] | - | - |