Detection of Chagas infections using Trypanosoma evansi crude antigen demonstrates high cross-reactions with Trypanosoma cruzi.

Antigenic similarities between salivarian trypanosomes are known for a long time, but similarities between salivarian and stercorarian trypanosomes have been very little investigated. Phylogenetically, these genus and species appear to be far. However, in a preliminary work we had shown strong reactions of chagasic human sera using T. evansi antigens in Western-blotting and ELISA. In the current work an ELISA test using T. evansi crude antigens was probed with one hundred and two sera of chagasic Bolivian patients previously diagnosed which presented different pathologies. The sensitivity of the ELISA T. evansi was 92.6% similar to that of ELISA T. cruzi. The specificity evaluated using 20 sera of patients infected by Leishmania sp. reaches a comparable value of that obtained with the T. cruzi immunofluorescent assay. Finally, the sensitivity and the specificity of the ELISA T. evansi were not really different from conventional serology of Chagas. In spite of their taxonomic position in various sections and their old divergence, these observations prove a strong antigenic community between T. cruzi and T. evansi. Consequently, the common antigens which remain to be characterized, could be an alternative source of antigen for the detection of antibodies against T. cruzi. Given that T. evansi seems to have strong antigenic communities with the majority of the pathogenic current trypanosomoses of mammals, it is very attractive to identify and characterize these highly conserved antigens which could be suitable targets to develop tools for diagnosis, prophylaxy and chemotherapy against several human and animal trypanosomoses.