March 7, 2023, 14:45 - 15:15
The detection of antibody serological markers by any immunoassay is widely used for early diagnosis, epidemiological surveillance, or evaluation of vaccine immunogenicity against many pathogens. Serological diagnosis of infectious diseases based on a single antigen is often challenging, because of the interference of natural antibodies elicited by previous colonization events. Therefore, to better discriminate between diseased and healthy people, a combination of antigens would be desirable. To this regard, proteomics offers excellent platforms to develop the necessary more sensitive and specific immunoassays. It is well assumed that surface proteins are those with the highest chance to raise an effective immune response against pathogen infection, as they are sufficiently exposed and accessible to both T and B cells. Protein arrays (either on solid surfaces or in microsphere format) are powerful tools to interrogate the pattern of host humoral responses to infections, which allows the study of many antigens simultaneously with a small amount of sample to select a set of antigens with optimal sensitivity and specificity. Here I will present the development of protein arrays on solid format for diagnostics of pneumococcal infection, and the use of the Luminex ® technology for evaluating the humoral response to SARS-CoV-2 in a cohort of children patients and healthcare workers