Immunoproteomic Studies of Aspergillus: Application in the Development of Immunotherapies, Vaccines and Biomarkers

Abstract

Filamentous Aspergillus fungi play a vital role as a pathogenic agent which causes superficial and invasive infections and allergy reactions in people. Invasive infections of Aspergillus are explicitly regarded by an unusual fatality rate owing to challenges in proper identification, characterization and inadequate antifungal treatment. The immunoproteomic techniques offer immense potential to identify new diagnosis, immunotherapies and targets for the production of vaccines associated with diseases, especially caused by Aspergillus species. One of the common antigenic protein identification approaches is Serological Proteome Analysis (SERPA), which integrate 2D electrophoresis with western blot method. In recent times, however, various new protein detection techniques have been introduced which either amplify antibody reactions or determine T-cell immunity targets for allergic or invasive fungal infected patients. Here, we look at the developments in immune responses against Aspergillus and the current methods for diagnosis and treatment of Aspergillus infections.