Screening of Mimic Epitopes of Toxoplasma gondii Antigen by Phage-displayed Peptide Library / 中国寄生虫学与寄生虫病杂志

ABSTRACT

Specific antibodies purified from sera of rabbit infected with Toxoplasma gondii were used to immun-oscreen the 12-mer and 7-mer phage random peptide libraries. By 3 rounds of screening, 70 clones were picked out ra-ndomly to test the specificity and 43 were found positive by ELISA. 23 of the 43 positive clones showing strong reaction in ELISA were picked out for sequencing. Clone A7 was selected as mimic antigen in ELISA test after analysis of the 23 short peptide sequences. 23 out of 47 sera from rabbits infected with Toxoplasma gondii were ELISA positive by A7 mimic antigen with a positive rate of 68.1%, and 10 of 155 sera from healthy persons showed false positive with a sp-ecificity of 93.5%. The primary result suggests that mimic antigen may have a potential use in diagnose of toxoplasmosis.