Serological follow-up after non-typhoid salmonella infection in humans using a mixed lipopolysaccharide ELISA

The Role of Maternally Acquired Antibody in Providing Protective Immunity Against Nontyphoidal Salmonella in Urban Vietnamese Infants: A Birth Cohort Study

Background

Nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) organisms are a major cause of gastroenteritis and bacteremia, but little is known about maternally acquired immunity and natural exposure in infant populations residing in areas where NTS disease is highly endemic.

Methods

We recruited 503 pregnant mothers and their infants (following delivery) from urban areas in Vietnam and followed infants until they were 1 year old. Exposure to the dominant NTS serovars, Salmonella enterica serovars Typhimurium and Enteritidis, were assessed using lipopolysaccharide (LPS) O antigen–specific antibodies. Antibody dynamics, the role of maternally acquired antibodies, and NTS seroincidence rates were modeled using multivariate linear risk factor models and generalized additive mixed-effect models.

Results

Transplacental transfer of NTS LPS–specific maternal antibodies to infants was highly efficient. Waning of transplacentally acquired NTS LPS–specific antibodies at 4 months of age left infants susceptible to Salmonella organisms, after which they began to seroconvert. High seroincidences of S. Typhimurium and S. Enteritidis LPS were observed, and infants born with higher anti-LPS titers had greater plasma bactericidal activity and longer protection from seroconversion.

Conclusions

Although Vietnamese infants have extensive exposure to NTS, maternally acquired antibodies appear to play a protective role against NTS infections during early infancy. These findings suggest that prenatal immunization may be an appropriate strategy to protect vulnerable infants from NTS disease.

Enteropathogen antibody dynamics and force of infection among children in low-resource settings

Little is known about enteropathogen seroepidemiology among children in low-resource settings. We measured serological IgG responses to eight enteropathogens (Giardia intestinalis, Cryptosporidium parvum, Entamoeba histolytica, Salmonella enterica, enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae, Campylobacter jejuni, norovirus) in cohorts from Haiti, Kenya, and Tanzania. We studied antibody dynamics and force of infection across pathogens and cohorts. Enteropathogens shared common seroepidemiologic features that enabled between-pathogen comparisons of transmission. Overall, exposure was intense: for most pathogens the window of primary infection was <3 years old; for highest transmission pathogens primary infection occurred within the first year. Longitudinal profiles demonstrated significant IgG boosting and waning above seropositivity cutoffs, underscoring the value of longitudinal designs to estimate force of infection. Seroprevalence and force of infection were rank-preserving across pathogens, illustrating the measures provide similar information about transmission heterogeneity. Our findings suggest antibody response can be used to measure population-level transmission of diverse enteropathogens in serologic surveillance.

Diarrhea, which is caused by bacteria such as Salmonella or by viruses like norovirus, is the fourth leading cause of death among children worldwide, with children in low-resource settings being at highest risk. The pathogens that cause diarrhea spread when stool from infected people comes into contact with new hosts, for example, through inadequate sanitation or by drinking contaminated water. Currently, the best way to track these infections is to collect stool samples from people and test them for the presence of the pathogens. Unfortunately, this is costly and difficult to do on a large scale outside of clinical settings, making it hard to track the spread of diarrhea-causing pathogens.

The body produces antibodies – small proteins that can detect specific pathogens – in response to an infection. These antibodies help ward off future infections by the same pathogen, so if they are present in the blood, this indicates a current or previous infection. Scientists already collect blood samples to track malaria, HIV and vaccine-preventable diseases in low-resource settings. These samples could be tested more broadly to measure the levels of antibodies against diarrhea-causing pathogens.

Now, Arnold et al. have used blood samples collected from children in Haiti, Kenya, and Tanzania to measure antibody responses to 8 diarrhea-causing pathogens. The results showed that many children in these settings had been infected with all 8 pathogens before age three, and that all of the pathogens shared similar age-dependent patterns of antibody response. This finding enabled Arnold et al. to combine antibody measurements with statistical models to estimate each pathogen’s force of infection, that is, the rate at which susceptible individuals in the population become infected. This is a key step for epidemiologists to understand which pathogens cause the most infections in a population.

The experiments show that testing blood samples for antibodies could provide scientists with a new tool to track the transmission of diarrhea-causing pathogens in low-resource settings. This information could help public health officials design and test efforts to prevent diarrhea, for example, by improving water treatment or developing vaccines.

Purification of recombinant IpaJ to develop an indirect ELISA-based method for detecting Salmonella enterica serovar Pullorum infections in chickens

Background

Salmonella enterica serovar Pullorum is a host-restricted serotype causing infection in poultry. The pathogen can not only cause acute infection in young chicks with high mortality and morbidity, but also persist in adult chickens without evident clinical symptoms and lead to vertical transmission. To eradicate S. Pullorum in poultry farms, it is necessary to establish an efficient method to monitor the prevalence of the pathogen in adult chickens. The protein IpaJ is a specific immunogen in S. Pullorum and is not detected in closely related serotypes, such as S. Gallinarum and S. Enteritidis.

Results

In the present study, IpaJ was expressed as a recombinant fusion protein MBP-IpaJ in E. coli. The purified MBP-IpaJ was used as a coating antigen to develop an indirect ELISA assay, which was applied to the detection of S. Pullorum infection in chickens. The indirect ELISA assay demonstrated that antibodies produced against IpaJ were detectable in antisera of chickens infected with S. Pullorum in the second week, stably increased until the tenth week, and persisted at a high level in the following two weeks. Furthermore, the ELISA method detected four positive samples out of 200 clinical antiserum samples collected from a poultry farm, and the positive samples were confirmed to be reacted with S. Pullorum using the standard plate agglutination test.

Conclusions

The established indirect ELISA using the IpaJ protein is a novel method for specific detection of S. Pullorum infection, and contribute to eradication of pullorum disease in the poultry industry.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12917-018-1753-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A novel aptasensor for the colorimetric detection of S. typhimurium based on gold nanoparticles

A simple, fast and convenient colorimetric aptasensor was fabricated for the detection of Salmonella typhimurium (S. typhimurium) which was based on the color change effect of gold nanoparticles (GNPs). S. typhimurium is one of the most common causes of food-associated disease. Aptamers with specific recognition toward S. typhimurium was modified to the surface of prepared GNPs. They play a role for the protection of GNPs from aggregation toward high concentrations of NaCl. With the addition of S. typhimurium, aptamers preferably combined to S. typhimurium and the protection effect was broken. With more S. typhimurium, more aptamers detached from GNPs. In such a situation, the exposed GNPs would aggregated to some extent with the addition of NaCl. The color changed from red, purple to blue which could be characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The absorbance spectra of GNPs redshifted constantly and the intensity ratio of A700/A521 changed regularly. This could be calculated for the basis of quantitative detection of S. typhimurium from 10²cfu/mL to 10⁷cfu/mL. The obtained linear correlation equation was y=0.1946x-0.2800 (R²=0.9939) with a detection limit as low as 56cfu/mL. This method is simple and rapid, results in high sensitivity and specificity, and can be used to detect actual samples.

Seroincidence of non-typhoid Salmonella infections: convenience vs. random community-based sampling

The incidence of reported infections of non-typhoid Salmonella is affected by biases inherent to passive laboratory surveillance, whereas analysis of blood sera may provide a less biased alternative to estimate the force of Salmonella transmission in humans. We developed a mathematical model that enabled a back-calculation of the annual seroincidence of Salmonella based on measurements of specific antibodies. The aim of the present study was to determine the seroincidence in two convenience samples from 2012 (Danish blood donors, n = 500, and pregnant women, n = 637) and a community-based sample of healthy individuals from 2006 to 2007 (n = 1780). The lowest antibody levels were measured in the samples from the community cohort and the highest in pregnant women. The annual Salmonella seroincidences were 319 infections/1000 pregnant women [90% credibility interval (CrI) 210-441], 182/1000 in blood donors (90% CrI 85-298) and 77/1000 in the community cohort (90% CrI 45-114). Although the differences between study populations decreased when accounting for different age distributions the estimates depend on the study population. It is important to be aware of this issue and define a certain population under surveillance in order to obtain consistent results in an application of serological measures for public health purposes.

Detecting non-typhoid Salmonella in humans by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs): practical and epidemiological aspects

Salmonellosis caused by non-typhoid Salmonella serotypes is one of the most common causes of food-borne illness throughout the world. The diagnosis is primarily by culture and more recently molecular methods, whereas the use of serological methods for diagnosis of Salmonella infections is limited by high running costs as well as low sensitivity and specificity. Fast and reliable immunoassays for detection of S. typhi subunit antigens are commercially available, but there is no international consensus of similar tests for non-typhoid salmonellosis. Most immunoassays for non-typhoid human Salmonella diagnosis are developed in-house and used in-house for research or regional surveillance purposes. Only few laboratories use serology for the diagnosis of Salmonella-associated complications such as arthritis. Considering the current burden of disease, the development of a validated and standardized, commercially available antibody assay for diagnosing non-typhoid human salmonellosis can be of great benefit for diagnostic and surveillance purposes throughout the world.

Seroincidence of human infections with nontyphoid Salmonella compared with data from public health surveillance and food animals in 13 European countries

We developed a model that enabled a back-calculation of the annual salmonellosis seroincidence from measurements of Salmonella antibodies and applied this model to 9677 serum samples collected from populations in 13 European countries. We found a 10-fold difference in the seroincidence, which was lowest in Sweden (0.06 infections per person-year), Finland (0.07), and Denmark (0.08) and highest in Spain (0.61), followed by Poland (0.55). These numbers were not correlated with the reported national incidence of Salmonella infections in humans but were correlated with prevalence data of Salmonella in laying hens (P < .001), broilers (P < .001), and slaughter pigs (P = .03). Seroincidence also correlated with Swedish data on the country-specific risk of travel-associated Salmonella infections (P = .001). Estimates based on seroepidemiological methods are well suited to measure the force of transmission of Salmonella to human populations, in particular relevant for assessments where data include notifications from areas, states or countries with diverse characteristics of the Salmonella surveillance.