Specific immunofluorescence staining of Treponema pallidum in smears and tissues

To date, tissue sections prepared from Formalin-fixed tissues have not been successfully stained with Treponema pallidum subspecies-specific antibody in a direct fluorescent-antibody assay. While current methods stain T. pallidum, they do not distinguish T. pallidum from other spirochetes such as Borrelia burgdorferi (E. F. Hunter, P. W. Greer, B. L. Swisher, A. R. Simons, C. E. Farshy, J. A. Crawford, and K. R. Sulzer, Arch. Pathol. Lab. Med. 108:878-880, 1984). Because trypsin pretreatment of tissue sections has enhanced other immunofluorescent-antibody (IFA) applications, we compared the use of the trypsin digestion method with the current 1% ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) method as a means to obtain specific staining of T. pallidum in tissues by both direct and indirect IFA techniques. Pretreated T. pallidum-infected tissues sections from rabbits, hamsters, and humans were quantitatively examined with the direct fluorescent-antibody-T. pallidum test conjugate absorbed with Treponema phagedenis, the Reiter treponeme. For indirect staining, a serum specimen from a patients with syphilis absorbed by affinity chromatography with T. phagedenis was used as the primary reagent, and a fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled rabbit anti-human globulin was used as the secondary reagent. Serum specificity was established first by examining antigen smears of T. pallidum subsp. pallidum, T. pallidum subsp. pertenue, B. burgdorferi, T. phagedenis, and Treponema denticola MRB and then by examining tissues infected with these pathogens plus those infected with four Leptospira serovars. When we stained tissue using the direct IFA method that is currently a standard method for the examination of chancre smears, we found it to be unsuitable for use with tissue. Trypsin digestion did not offer an improvement over the NH4OH pretreatment method in the specific identification of T. pallidum by direct IFA. However, specific identification of T. pallidum in tissue sections was obtained by the indirect IFA technique after either trypsin or NH4OH pretreatment.