@article{astmh:/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0976, author = "Naz, Shumaila and Desclozeaux, Marion and Mounsey, Kate E. and Chaudhry, Farhana Riaz and Walton, Shelley F.", title = "Characterization of Sarcoptes scabiei Tropomyosin and Paramyosin: Immunoreactive Allergens in Scabies", journal= "The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene", year = "2017", volume = "97", number = "3", pages = "851-860", doi = "https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0976", url = "http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0976", publisher = "The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene", issn = "0002-9637", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "Abstract. Scabies is a human skin disease due to the burrowing ectoparasite Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis resulting in intense itching and inflammation and manifesting as a skin allergy. Because of insufficient mite material and lack of in vitro propagation system for antigen preparation, scabies is a challenging disease to develop serological diagnostics. For allergen characterization, full-length S. scabiei tropomyosin (Sar s 10) was cloned, expressed in pET-15b, and assessed for reactivity with IgE antibodies from human sera. IgE binding was observed to Sar s 10 with sera collected from subjects with ordinary scabies, house dust mite (HDM)-positive and naive subjects and a diagnostic sensitivity of < 30% was observed. S. scabiei paramyosin (Sar s 11) was cloned, and expressed in pET-28a in three overlapping fragments designated Sspara1, Sspara2, and Sspara3. IgE and IgG binding was observed to Sspara2 and Sspara3 antigens with sera collected from ordinary scabies, and HDM-positive subjects, but no binding was observed with sera collected from naive subjects. Sspara2 displayed excellent diagnostic potential with 98% sensitivity and 90% specificity observed for IgE binding and 70% sensitivity for IgG. In contrast, the diagnostic sensitivity of Sspara3 was 84% for IgE binding and 40% for IgG binding. In combination, Sspara2 and Sspara3 provided an IgE sensitivity of 94%. This study shows that IgE binding to Sspara2 and Sspara3 is a highly sensitive method for diagnosis of scabies infestation in clinical practice. The developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay helps direct future development of a specific diagnostic tool for scabies.", }