ABSTRACT
Serodiagnosis is essentially a function of the humoral antibody response to infection. For both historic and practical considerations, it has taken precedence over the measurement of cell-mediated immune responses for infection. Serodiagnosis has been a time-honoured application of considerable benefit, and it continues to be a broadly-applicable major tool despite the advances that have been made in molecular and ancillary diagnostics. From a historical perspective, serodiagnosis has played a large role in laboratory diagnostics at times when culture methods were especially fallible and when pathogens were emerging or not truly defmed. Indeed, for some fastidious pathogens, serodiagnosis has often been the first diagnostic method that was available. For some non-cultivable pathogens, the potential to clone organism-specific genome and then express antigens, especially proteins, in vitro has provided even further justification to invoke serodiagnosis.
