Schistosoma mansoni eggs are ground to liberate soluble egg antigens which are fractionated and purified by absorption, gel filtration and/or ion exchange chromatography, and then radioactively labelled with .sup. 125 I. A fraction, identified as MSA.sub.1, is specific to the mature egg stage of Schistosoma mansoni and thus can be used to detect the presence of antibody to mature Schistosoma mansoni eggs in a patient's serum even as compared with mature eggs of different Schistosoma (species specific) or of Schistosoma mansoni worms but not mature eggs (stage specific).
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