Identification of a potential marker for Brugia malayi infection by Western Blot analysis

Brugia malayi adult antigen was electrophoresed on SDS-PAGE gels and electrophoretically transferred onto PVDF membranes. The membrane strips were incubated with different categories of human sera, followed by successive incubations with blocking solution, monoclonal anti-human IgG4 antibody and peroxidase rabbit anti-mouse IgG antibody; with adequate washings done in between each incubation steps. Chemiluminescence detection was used to develop the blots. Two antigenic epitopes (molecular weights of -67-68 kDa and -54-55 kDA) were found to be present in the Western blots of all microfilaraemic sera, all amicrofilaraemic sera with positive anti-filarial IgG4 antibodies, some treated patients and some elephantiasis patients. We hypothesized that last two groups are still harbouring live adult worms despite being treated or in the chronic stage respectively. The two epitopes did not simultaneously react with soil-transmitted helminth sera, normal endemic sera and sera of city dwellers.Therefore the simultaneous presence of both epitopes may potentially serve as a marker for Brugia malayi infection

Roxithromycin potentiates the effects of chloroquine and mefloquine on multidrug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum in vitro

Chloroquine (CQ) and mefloquine (MQ) are no longer potent antimalarial drugs due to the emergence of resistant Plasmodium falciparum. Combination therapy has become the standard for many regimes in overcoming drug resistance. Roxithromycin (ROM), a known p-glycoprotein inhibitor, is reported to have antimalarial activity and it is hoped it will potentiate the effects of both CQ/MQ and reverse CQ/MQ-resistance. We assayed the effects of CQ and MQ individually and in combination with ROM on synchronized P. falciparum (Dd2 strain) cultures. The IC(50) values of CQ and MQ were 60.0+/-5.0 and 16.0+/-3.0 ng/ml; these were decreased substantially when combined with ROM. Isobolograms indicate that CQ-ROM combinations were relatively more synergistic (mean FICI 0.70) than MQ-ROM (mean FICI 0.85) with their synergistic effect at par with CQ-verapamil (VRP) (mean FICI 0.64) and MQ-VRP (mean FICI 0.60) combinations. We conclude that ROM potentiates the CQ/MQ response on multidrug-resistant P. falciparum