Navegando por Autor "Figueiredo, Maria Marta"

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    American tegumentary leishmaniasis : effectiveness of an immunohistochemical protocol for the detection of leishmania in skin.
    (2013) Alves, Cibele Fontes; Alves, Cíntia Fontes; Figueiredo, Maria Marta; Souza, Carolina Carvalho de; Coelho, George Luiz Lins Machado; Melo, Maria Norma; Tafuri, Washington Luiz; Raso, Pedro; Soares, Rodrigo Pedro Pinto; Tafuri, Wagner Luiz
    Background: American tegumentary leishmaniasis (ATL) is endemic in Latin America, where Brazil has over 27 thousand cases per year. The aim of the present study was to develop an immunohistochemical method (IHC) for ATL diagnosis. For this purpose, we used serum from a dog naturally infected with Leishmania (L) infantum (canine hyperimmune serum) as the primary antibody, followed by a detection system with a secondary biotinylated antibody. Methodology: Skin samples were obtained from 73 patients in an endemic area of Caratinga, Minas Gerais (MG) State, Brazil all testing positive for ATL with the Montenegro skin test, microscopy, and PCR. Canine hyperimmune serum of a dog naturally infected with Leishmania (L.) infantum was employed as a primary antibody in an immunohistochemical diagnostic method using streptavidin-biotin peroxidase. To assess the specificity of this reaction, IHC assays employing two monoclonal antibodies were carried out. As the polymer-based technology is less time-consuming and labor intensive than the IHC labeled streptavidin-biotin peroxidase method, we compared the two methods for all samples. Results: The IHC method detected ATL in 67 of the 73 cases (91.8%). Immunolabeled parasites were primarily detected inside macrophages either in the superficial or the deep dermis. Detection was facilitated by the high contrast staining of amastigotes (dark brown) against the light blue background. A lower detection rate (71.2%) was observed with the both of the monoclonal Leishmania antibodies compared to the canine hyperimmune serum. This may have been due to a nonspecific background staining observed in all histological samples rendering positive detection more difficult. The higher efficacy of the canine hyperimmune serum in the IHC method was confirmed by the method using streptavidin-biotin peroxidase as well as that with the polymer-based technology (biotin-avidin-free system). Conclusions: The data are encouraging with regard to validating IHC as a standard alternative method for ATL diagnosis.
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    Evaluation of three recombinant proteins for the development of ELISA and immunochromatographic tests for visceral leishmaniasis serodiagnosis.
    (2019) Santos, Anna Raquel Ribeiro dos; Serufo, Ângela Vieira; Figueiredo, Maria Marta; Godoi, Lara Carvalho; Vitório, Jéssica Gardone; Marcelino, Andreza Pain; Avelar, Daniel Moreira de; Rodrigues, Fernandes Tenório Gomes; Coelho, George Luiz Lins Machado; Medeiros, Fernanda Alvarenga Cardoso; Jeronimo, Selma Maria Bezerra; Oliveira, Edward José de; Nascimento, Frederico Crepaldi; Teixeira, Santuza Maria Ribeiro; Gazzinelli, Ricardo Tostes; Nagem, Ronaldo Alves Pinto; Fernandes, Ana Paula Salles Moura
    BACKGROUND Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is an infectious disease that is a significant cause of death among infants aged under 1 year and the elderly in Brazil. Serodiagnosis is a mainstay of VL elimination programs; however, it has significant limitations due to low accuracy. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate three recombinant Leishmania infantum proteins (rFc, rC9, and rA2) selected from previous proteomics and genomics analyses to develop enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunochromatographic tests (ICT) for the serodiagnosis of human VL (HVL) and canine VL (CVL). METHODS A total of 186 human (70 L. infantum-infected symptomatic, 20 other disease-infected, and 96 healthy) and 185 canine (82 L. infantum-infected symptomatic, 27 L. infantum-infected asymptomatic, and 76 healthy) sera samples were used for antibody detection. FINDINGS Of the three proteins, rA2 (91.5% sensitivity and 87% specificity) and rC9 (95.7% sensitivity and 87.5% specificity) displayed the best performance in ELISA-HVL and ELISA-CVL, respectively. ICT-rA2 also displayed the best performance for HVL diagnosis (92.3% sensitivity and 88.0% specificity) and had high concordance with immunofluorescence antibody tests (IFAT), ELISA-rK39, IT-LEISH®, and ELISAEXT. ICT-rFc, ICT-rC9, and ICT-rA2 had sensitivities of 88.6%, 86.5%, and 87.0%, respectively, with specificity values of 84.0%, 92.0%, and 100%, respectively for CVL diagnosis. MAIN CONCLUSIONS The three antigens selected by us are promising candidates for VL diagnosis regardless of the test format, although the antigen combinations and test parameters may warrant further optimisation.
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    A potential link among antioxidant enzymes, histopathology, and trace elements in canine visceral leishmaniasis.
    (2014) Souza, Carolina Carvalho de; Barreto, Tatiane Oliveira; Silva, Sydnei Magno da; Pinto, Aldair Junio Woyames; Figueiredo, Maria Marta; Rocha, Olguita Geralda Ferreira; Cangussú, Silvia Dantas; Tafuri, Wagner Luiz
    Canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) is a severe and fatal systemic chronic inflammatory disease. We investigated the alterations in, and potential associations among, antioxidant enzymes, trace elements and histopathology in CVL. Blood and tissue levels of Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase were measured in mixed-breed dogs naturally infected with Leishmania infantum chagasi, symptomatic (n = 19) and asymptomatic (n = 11). Serum levels of copper, iron, zinc, selenium and nitric oxide, and plasma lipid peroxidation were measured. Histological and morphometric analyses were conducted of lesions in liver, spleen and lymph nodes. We found lower blood catalase and glutathione peroxidase activity to be correlated with lower iron and selenium respectively. However, higher activity of Cu- Zn superoxide dismutase was not correlated with the increase in copper and decreased in zinc observed in infected animals compared to controls. Organ tissue was characterized by lower enzyme activity in infected dogs than in controls, but this was not correlated with trace elements. Lipid peroxidation was higher in symptomatic than in asymptomatic and control dogs and was associated with lesions such as chronic inflammatory reaction, congestion, haemosiderin and fibrosis. Systemic iron deposition was observed primarily in the symptomatic dogs showing a higher tissue parasite load. Dogs with symptomatic CVL displayed enhanced LPO and Fe tissue deposition associated with decreased levels of antioxidant enzymes. These results showed new points in the pathology of CVL and might open new treatment perspectives associated with antioxidants and the role of iron in the pathogenesis of CVL.