This novel application to diagnose patient exposure to tropical pathogens integrates antigen display and quorum sensing to implement AND logic sensing. It facilitates cheap, simple diagnosis of neglected tropical diseases such as HAT. Future diagnosis kits can be constructed and modularized using the cheap and self-replenishing E. coli based detection system we created as a platform for displaying two different mimotopes. Mimotopes are shortened versions of real epitopes identified for a panel of diseases, all of which are currently stored in a universal database, available to everyone and known as MimoDB (INSERT URL here). Moreover, it was recently shown that upon heat-treatment of Ag43 autotransporter-foreign peptide complex at 60°C, a chimeric form of the expressed foreign protein can be isolated and remain fully active. The chimeric protein was then used to induce an immune response and to develop a novel vaccine for cancer therapy ((Huang et al., 2014)). Therefore, we suggest that further research can be done on Ag43-trypanosomal mimotope/ other mimotope complexes for a potential first vaccine for HAT/ other diseases.

Reference: Huang, F., Li, L., Liu, Q., Li, Y., Bai, R., Huang, Y., Zhao, H., Guo, J., Zhou, S., Wang, H. and others, (2014). Bacterial surface display of endoglin by antigen 43 induces antitumor effectiveness via bypassing immunotolerance and inhibition of angiogenesis. International Journal of Cancer, 134(8), pp.1981--1990.