Isolation of the Taenia crassiceps antigens from a phage display cDNA library and evaluation of their use for diagnosis of neurocysticercosis

A novel cDNA cloning strategy consisting in elimination of non-coding DNA sequences from 3′ regions of cDNAs was applied to construct the Taenia crassiceps phage displayed cDNA expression library. After biopanning using immune sera, three phage clones expressing T. crassiceps-derived antigens specifically recognizing antibodies present in cerebrospinal fluid and plasma samples from neuroimaging-confirmed neurocysticercosis patients were selected. This novel cloning strategy may be applied to other pathogens allowing rapid identification of peptides/proteins for immunodiagnostic tests.