Food Microbiology

There is a need for a rapid, inexpensive and accurate serum antibody-based diagnostic with targets of high specificity for screening of large cohorts of women and men at risk of infection by Trichomonas vaginalis. This protist causes the number one nonviral sexually transmitted infection worldwide. The antigen-detection OSOM™ Trichomonas Rapid Test (Seskui Diagnostics) is a lateral flow, immunochromatographic Point-of-Care test that works only for women. During our investigations of the T. vaginalishost interactions, highly immunogenic proteins detected by sera of patients with trichomonosis, but not uninfected controls were identified. Some of these immunogenic proteins include the metabolic enzymes fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (A), α-enolase (E), and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G). The epitopes of these proteins were characterized and found to have little or no sequence identity to other eukaryotes, yeasts, and microbial pathogens, including organisms that cause other STIs. We have constructed a new version of an earlier chimeric recombinant String-Of-Epitopes (SOE) protein consisting of 15-mer peptides of epitopes of A, E, and G. This composite protein called AEG:SOE2 was detected by ELISA with highly reactive sera of women and men but not control, negative serum lacking antibody to T. vaginalis. I believe that this approach lends itself to the creation of highly specific immunogenic targets for both detection of serum antibody in patients as well as for future subunit vaccines.