Projects / Programmes
Preparation of fungal antigens and study of their immunogenic properties for diagnostic application
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 4.04.02 |
Biotechnical sciences |
Veterinarian medicine |
Animal pathology and epizootiology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| B230 |
Biomedical sciences |
Microbiology, bacteriology, virology, mycology |
| P004 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Biochemistry, Metabolism |
dermatophytoses, M. canis, immunogenicity, antigens, diagnostic methods, zoonotic diseases
Researchers (7)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
Fungal skin infections are permanently increasing in the countries of southern Europe as well as in Slovenia and its neighbour countries. Among them the infection with Microsporum canis is the most widely spread. Standard diagnostic methods are time consuming and some times unreliable compared to culture techniques. The efforts of different research groups are focussed on study and understanding of specific immunogenic defence mechanisms associated with mycoses, including the mechanisms of antigen presentation, lymphocyte activation and mechanisms responsible for elimination of antigens. Studies of natural and experimental fungal infections have revealed that both, humoral and cellular immune response are activated during the infection. However, in the case of dermatomycoses cellular immune response is supposed to have a protective role. Cell wall proteins, metabolite as well as intracellular proteins represent the potential antigens for the invaded host organism. Cell wall proteins belong mainly to glycoproteins while among metabolites and intracellular proteins different proteinases, specially keratinases seem to be the most important during the spread of the infection. Isolation and characterisation of these protein components may enable the development of new serologic diagnostic tools as well as identification of the most immunogenic proteins which can be candidates for incorporation in a new protective vaccine.
Permanent increase of fungal infections suggested us to study the role of particular fungal antigens in the cases of epidemiologically and epizootiologically most frequently observed infections with dermatophytes like Microsporum canis and Trichophyton mentagrophytes and yeast belonging to genus of Malassezia and Candida. to find the most immunogenic proteins, the mechanically disrupted micelia will be extracted in buffer solutions and further analysed by chromatographic and electrophoretic procedures. The specific antigens isolated will be used in studies of humoral and cellular immune response associated with different fungal infections and compared with commercially available allergens. These studies are supposed to reveal possible connections between patogenicity and antigenic protein profile of the fungi studied.
