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ApoH
Capture and Enrichment of Emerging Pathogens for Multiple and Ultra-sensitive Diagnostic
Despite remarkable advances in medical research and treatments during the 20th century, infectious diseases remain among the leading causes of death worldwide. Infectious diseases are a global concern. Annually 15 million deaths attributable to infectious diseases occur on the planet, with 95% in the resource limited settings. The main causes for this phenomenon are: (1) emergence of new infectious pathogens; (2) re-emergence of old infectious diseases that have reappeared after a significant decline in incidence and (3) persistence of intractable infectious pathogens. Indeed, the previous decades have been marked by several striking episodes of emerging and re-emerging pathogens such as Human Immunodeficiency virus, Marburg virus, Hepatitis C virus, Hantavirus, Ebola, West-Nile virus, Dengue virus, Yellow fever virus and more recently SARS coronavirus and avian flu.
New infectious diseases continue to evolve and “emerge.” According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic pathogens. Most of theses human diseases are caused by the introduction of existing pathogens into human populations from other species or dissemination from endemic areas into larger populations. This process depends upon a complex interaction of factors such as ecological, environmental and/or climatic changes, the basic biology of pathogens, host and cell tropism, the route of transmission, the natural host reservoir and the vector, social behavior, international travel and commerce, political instability, breakdown in public health measures, etc. In order to anticipate the measures to be taken to prevent or control future epidemics, considerable attention has recently been directed to emerging and re-emerging infections at the national and international level (http://www.euro.who.int/surveillance). The key challenge in managing current and future epidemics is lack of fast, sensitive and reliable diagnostics to detect known and unknown pathogens.
During studies of the interactions between pathogens and host cells, the human protein Apolipoprotein H (ApoH) was identified as a protein that strongly interacts with different non-self elements including viruses, bacteria and parasites and can be used as a candidate for the development of novel capture technologies. Based on these properties, USDEP project uses the appropriate solid matrix coated ApoH as a generic capture method for a wide range of pathogens in order to concentrate them from large sample volumes of complex biological mixtures, otherwise poorly amenable for molecular methods and thus to improve their detection threshold. Partners in USDEP Project are developing highly sensitive molecular diagnostic tools to enable detection of new pathogenic agents and rapid detection of multiple pathogens in clinical samples in which current state of art diagnostic techniques are either not available or not sensitive enough.
New infectious diseases continue to evolve and “emerge.” According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic pathogens. Most of theses human diseases are caused by the introduction of existing pathogens into human populations from other species or dissemination from endemic areas into larger populations. This process depends upon a complex interaction of factors such as ecological, environmental and/or climatic changes, the basic biology of pathogens, host and cell tropism, the route of transmission, the natural host reservoir and the vector, social behavior, international travel and commerce, political instability, breakdown in public health measures, etc. In order to anticipate the measures to be taken to prevent or control future epidemics, considerable attention has recently been directed to emerging and re-emerging infections at the national and international level (http://www.euro.who.int/surveillance). The key challenge in managing current and future epidemics is lack of fast, sensitive and reliable diagnostics to detect known and unknown pathogens.
During studies of the interactions between pathogens and host cells, the human protein Apolipoprotein H (ApoH) was identified as a protein that strongly interacts with different non-self elements including viruses, bacteria and parasites and can be used as a candidate for the development of novel capture technologies. Based on these properties, USDEP project uses the appropriate solid matrix coated ApoH as a generic capture method for a wide range of pathogens in order to concentrate them from large sample volumes of complex biological mixtures, otherwise poorly amenable for molecular methods and thus to improve their detection threshold. Partners in USDEP Project are developing highly sensitive molecular diagnostic tools to enable detection of new pathogenic agents and rapid detection of multiple pathogens in clinical samples in which current state of art diagnostic techniques are either not available or not sensitive enough.
Use molecular biology detection methods to enable highly sensitive and rapid detection of viruses and bacteria!!!!
