NYMC Student Theses and Dissertations
Date of Award
5-26-2021
Document Type
Master's Thesis - Open Access
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Microbiology and Immunology
First Advisor
Dr. Paul Arnaboldi
Second Advisor
Dr. Dionysios Liveris
Third Advisor
Dr. Mary Petzke
Abstract
Laboratory diagnosis is very critical for early treatment of Lyme disease, as Lyme disease could be difficult to diagnose because of vague symptoms or the confusion with symptoms from other illnesses. Previously, the standard two tiered-testing (STTT) was the traditional testing for Lyme disease with two different lab testing methods, Enzyme Immunoassay (EIA) as the first-tier test and immunoblot as the second-tier test to confirm the diagnosis. However, western immunoblotting had a poor sensitivity of <50% for early Lyme disease and high costs. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the use of a modified two tiered-testing (MTTT) which was cleared by The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in which EIA can be used instead of western immunoblotting.
In this study we followed a recent multiplexed paper-based immunoassay study for early Lyme disease serodiagnostic testing by using an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique to detect specific antibodies for different Borrelia antigens. These include BBA64-7 and BBA65-94 peptides of B. burgdorferi that showed promising results with high seropositivity against IgM antibody in early Lyme disease samples provided by CDC with 50%, and 83% positivity, respectively.
Recommended Citation
Ghazal, Ezdehar, "Development of improved diagnostic tests for Lyme disease" (2021). NYMC Student Theses and Dissertations. 20.
https://touroscholar.touro.edu/nymc_students_theses/20
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