Monitoring of antibody responses in Sudanese Eumycetoma patients

Abstract

Madurella mycetomatis is the commonest cause of eumycetoma in Sudan and other countries in tropical Africa. This study was done to monitor the specific anti Madurella mycetomatis antibodies of IgM, IgE, IgG classes, IgG3 and IgG4 subclasses levels in mycetoma patients and endemic negative controls and to determine the effect of treatment on antibody responses in Sudanese patient infected with eumycetoma due to Madurella mycetomatis. In this study the most affected age group was between 16-30 years (68.3%), and the lowest affected age group was between 61-75 years (0.7%). Dot blot was used to detect the presence of Madurella mycetomatis antigen, the pellet showed the strong reaction, supernatant was less reactive and the culture filtrate showed weak reaction. In this study, IgM, IgG, IgE classes and IgG3 and IgG4 subclasses antibody titers were measured by means of ELISA in plasma from mycetoma patients before, under and after treatment infected with eumycetoma due to Madurella mycetomatis and in negative controls plasma in Sudan. When the levels of IgG and IgM were compared before, after and during treatment of mycetoma patients, IgG levels were higher than IgM with a significant difference at 5% and P-value 0.000. No significant differences were found between titers of IgG3 and IgG4 subclasses in all mycetoma patients. The IgE levels were measured in this study and the titer is insignificant and when it was compared with the IgG levels; the IgG is higher than the IgE. When sera from mycetoma patients -before treatment- were compared with the controls, there was a significant difference between controls and IgG and IgE antibodies, while for IgM the difference was insignificant. There was no significant difference in immunoglobulins levels in patient with or without sinuses.