Detection of anti-Chlamydia trachomatis (Ctr) antibodies is compromised by cross-reactivity and poor sensitivity of classic Ctr-antigens. We discovered 48 strongly reactive peptide antigens of Ctr-specific B-cell epitopes from 21 immunodominant proteins. In this study, we review the utility of peptide assays for diagnosis of Ctr infections. By combining many of these Ctr-specific B-cell epitopes from several proteins in separate or mixed multipeptide assays, they achieved vastly superior assay sensitivity and specificity over standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Such multipeptide assays eliminate cross-reactivities (false positives) and correct for stochastic gaps in antibody responses (false negatives). More importantly, we developed and validated a novel microarray platform in which hundreds of peptides from many proteins are spotted in a single reaction well. This offers the possibility of high-throughput screening of many candidate peptides for routine serological fingerprinting of Ctr infections. Discovery of optimal sets of antibody responses that associate with clinical pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) may identify diagnostically useful PID biomarker antigens.

中文翻译：

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用于敏感和差异检测抗沙眼衣原体抗体的多肽测定

抗沙眼衣原体 (Ctr) 抗体的检测受到经典 Ctr 抗原的交叉反应性和敏感性差的影响。我们从 21 个免疫显性蛋白中发现了 48 个 Ctr 特异性 B 细胞表位的强反应性肽抗原。在这项研究中，我们回顾了肽测定在诊断 Ctr 感染中的应用。通过在单独或混合的多肽分析中结合来自几种蛋白质的这些 Ctr 特异性 B 细胞表位中的许多，他们获得了比标准酶联免疫吸附分析更优越的分析灵敏度和特异性。这种多肽测定消除了交叉反应（假阳性）并纠正了抗体反应中的随机间隙（假阴性）。更重要的是，我们开发并验证了一种新型微阵列平台，在该平台中，来自多种蛋白质的数百种肽被点样在一个反应​​孔中。这提供了对许多候选肽进行高通量筛选的可能性，用于 Ctr 感染的常规血清学指纹识别。发现与临床盆腔炎 (PID) 相关的最佳抗体反应组可以识别诊断上有用的 PID 生物标志物抗原。