Evaluation of antigenic variations between two virulent toxoplasma strains.

Toxoplasma gondii infection in humans is routinely assessed by serological means. Here, the authors attempted to compare the response of different Toxoplasma strains to serological tests and to evaluate the antigenic profiles of the RH and RH Ankara (TRH) strains with Western blotting. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies of 72 patients were examined with the indirect immunofluorescence antibody (IFA) test, ELISA and Western blotting (WB) by using antigen from both strains. Antigenic variations between strains did not affect IFA and ELISA test results, but qualitative and quantitative differences between the WB patterns were observed. A number of bands with molecular masses varying between 17 and 105 kDa were detected in WB. Fourteen different bands were obtained with the assay performed with RH strain antigen. An additional four bands were observed with TRH strain antigen. Also, an 80 kDa band was observed to stain darker in the blot with TRH strain antigen, whereas with RH strain antigen 30 and 38 kDa bands were darker. The results showed that strain-specific polymorphism in tachyzoite antigens of different Toxoplasma strains is important in the evaluation of WB but not in conventional serological analyses such as ELISA and IFA.