Abstract:
Background: Porcine cysticercosis has a negative impact on human health and the meat industry, as it makes
infected meat unaproprieted for consuption and it is the main etiology of epileptic seizures in developing countries.
There are multiple serological assays that use crude antigens with high sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of
both porcine and human cysticercosis. Nonetheless, antigen preparation is time-consuming, needs a well-equipped
laboratory and trained personnel and places those manipulating the meat at great risk for infection. New serodiag-
nostic approaches to the diagnosis of porcine and human cysticercosis have been directed towards the development
of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid technology for the generation of synthetic proteins that can serve as simplified,
low-cost and harmless substitutes for native antigens. The aim of the present study was to further evaluate the recom-
binant Tsol-p27 protein as a target molecule in immunoassays for the serodiagnosis of porcine cysticercosis. From
these data, we hoped to develop recommendations regarding its use in the serodiagnosis of porcine cysticercosis.
Results: We studied a panel of 83 naturally infected pig sera from Angónia District, Mozambique, an endemic area for
porcine and human cysticercosis. These sera were previously tested by antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(Ag-ELISA) to detect antigens of T. solium. The serum panel was processed by enzyme-linked immunoelectrotransfer
blot (EITB) assay against the recombinant Tsol-p27 protein and the Ag-ELISA assay results were used to compare and
evaluate the performance of Tsol-p27 for the diagnosis of cysticercosis. Out of 83 sera, 24 (29.0%) were positive for
Tsol-p27 and 59 (71%) were negative in the same assay. From the 37 sera that tested positive to Ag-ELISA, 11 (13.3%)
were positive to Tsol-p27, while from 46 sera that tested negative to Ag-ELISA, 33 (39.7%) also tested negative to Tsol-
p27. The sensitivity and specificity of Tsol-p27 was 29.7% and 71.7%, respectively, while the positive predictive value
and negative predictive value were 45.8% and 55.9%, respectively, as calculated using Medcalc ® version 15.0 software
(MedCalc Software, Ostend, Belgium).
Conclusion: While Tsol-p27 recombinant protein might be suitable for testing human sera, its performance in pigs is
not acceptable, so other recombinant proteins should be evaluated alone or multiplexed
