Abstract
A comparison of sensitivity was performed among adenovirus antigen detection kits, which were developed on the basis of immunochromatography technology and are routinely used in the clinical setting. The tested kits were QuicknaviTM-Adeno, Quickchaser®Adeno, Immunocard®ST AdenovirusⅡ, BD VeritorTMSystem Adeno, Primecheck®Adeno, and Imunoace®Adeno. The comparison was performed with 8 standard strains of adenovirus stocks, namely, types 1–7 and 11, as the subjects for the test. The minimum detection limit of concentration of each kit was determined comparatively for each viral strain by investigating the maximum dilution rate of the viral stock giving a positive result. Thus, the concentration limit differed among viral strains for each kit and among kits for each viral strain, showing even a 50-fold difference in extreme cases. Particularly for adenovirus types 6 and 11, all the tested kits showed poor reactivity. Then, the absolute minimum detection limits were calculated on the basis of the minimum copy number of viral DNA or the minimum detectable infective titer of the subject strains to the culture cells. Greater differences were found in the comparison among viral strains when using the infectivity than when using the gene copy numbers: the infectivity titers of the virus stocks of types 3, 7, and 11 were about 107 times lower than those of other strains, and the sensitivities to types 3, 7, and 11 were found to be apparently higher than those to other types when the infectivity was used for the comparison. Thus, caution is advised in comparisons using the infectivity parameter, and gene copy number could be a preferable alternative.
