Microproteinuria during Opisthorchis viverrini Infection: A Biomarker for Advanced Renal and Hepatobiliary Pathologies from Chronic Opisthorchiasis
Figure 1
The relationship between Opisthorchis viverrini infection and serum and urine antibodies to OV antigen.
The status of O. viverrini infection was determined by microscopic fecal examination. Individuals were categorized as to the intensity of OV infection by the geometric mean of the eggs per gram of feces as follows: “negative” or “0” (no eggs detected in feces), “lightly infected (1–499 eggs per gram of feces), or “medium-to heavily“ infected (≥500 eggs per gram of feces). In the case of CCA patients, the serum and urine specimens were obtained from histologically proven cases of opisthorchiasis-associated cholangiocarcinoma from the biological specimen repository of the Liver fluke and Cholangiocarcinoma Research Center, Khon Kaen University, Thailand. The levels of the following antibodies were determined to a crude adult OV antigen extract by indirect ELISA: serum IgG (Panel A), serum IgG1 (Panel B), serum IgG4 (Panel C) and urine IgG (Panel D). The Ab levels of each infection group was estimated by the mean shown as the red horizontal line in each group and tested using ANOVA followed by Pairwise Testing of each group with a Bonferroni correction for multiple testing.