Clinical and vaccine immunology : CVI
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Clin. Vaccine Immunol. · Sep 2015
Human Neutrophil Lipocalin as a Superior Diagnostic Means To Distinguish between Acute Bacterial and Viral Infections.
The distinction between causes of acute infections is a major clinical challenge. Current biomarkers, however, are not sufficiently accurate. Human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL) concentrations in serum or whole blood activated by formyl-methionine-leucine-phenylalanine (fMLP) were shown to distinguish acute infections of bacterial or viral cause with high accuracy. ⋯ In the distinction between healthy controls and patients with bacterial infections, the areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were >0.85 for all biomarkers, whereas for the distinction between bacterial and viral infections, only HNL concentration in fMLP-activated whole blood showed an area under the ROC curve (AUROC) of >0.90 and superior clinical performance. The clinical performance of HNL in fMLP-activated whole blood was superior to current biomarkers and similar to previous results of HNL in serum. The procedure can be adopted for point-of-care testing with response times of <15 min.
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Clin. Vaccine Immunol. · Sep 2015
Synthetic Long Peptide Derived from Mycobacterium tuberculosis Latency Antigen Rv1733c Protects against Tuberculosis.
Responsible for 9 million new cases of active disease and nearly 2 million deaths each year, tuberculosis (TB) remains a global health threat of overwhelming dimensions. Mycobacterium bovis BCG, the only licensed vaccine available, fails to confer lifelong protection and to prevent reactivation of latent infection. Although 15 new vaccine candidates are now in clinical trials, an effective vaccine against TB remains elusive, and new strategies for vaccination are vital. ⋯ This was observed both in a pre- and in a post-M. tuberculosis challenge setting. Moreover, Rv1733c SLP immunization significantly boosted the protective efficacy of BCG, demonstrating the potential of M. tuberculosis latency antigens to improve BCG efficacy. These data suggest a promising role for M. tuberculosis latency antigen Rv1733c-derived SLPs as a novel TB vaccine approach, both in a prophylactic and in a postinfection setting.