Efficacy of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Diagnosis of Schistosomiasis

One of the world wide major public health problems is the schistosomiasis that is caused by Schistosoma (S.) heamatobium. It is also one of the main concerns for the public health community in Egypt. There are several immunodiagnostic methods used for that diagnosis of such disease, but some are more sensitive and specific than others. The tegumental Schistosoma-specific protein detection in serum samples is found out to be more valuable in diagnosis. The tegumental antigen was purified from whole worms by DEAE-Sephadex G-75 ion exchange chromatography and then was injected into rabbits to produce specific polyclonal antibodies (pAb) which were then used as a primary capture in the indirect ELISA technique to reveal its reactivity using infected human sera. The anti- tegumental pAb was then labeled with horse-radish peroxidase (HRP) and used as a secondary capture. Sandwich ELISA was done for serum samples of human and hamsters infected with S.heamatobium. . The sensitivity of the traditional sandwich ELISA with anti-tegumental pAb was 85% and it increased by using the sandwich IMB-ELISA to be 95% in serum.The specificity of sandwich ELISA was 88.3% and it increased by using the sandwich IMB-ELISA to be 93.3%.The data obtained concluded that the IMB-ELISA appears to be a sufficiently sensitive and feasible assay for detection of schistosomal antigenemia and the evaluation of its potential use in human schistosomiasis is in progress.