Abstract
Anti-Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibody tests are necessary for the diagnosis of EBV-related diseases such as infectious mononucleosis (IM). Antivirus capsid antigen (VCA), anti-early antigen (EA), and anti-EBV nuclear antigen (EBNA) antibodies are used as specific antibodies for EBV in clinical laboratories. Two types of VCA antibody are available: the VCA-IgM level is elevated in the first infection by EBV, whereas the VCA-IgG level increases during the period of recovery from EBV infection. We diagnose the states of EBV infection using the combination of these antibodies. BioPlex2200 (BioRad) is an auto-multiplex immunoassay system and we can measure 2 types of IgM and 3 types of IgG at the same time using the reagents for the detection of anti-EBV antibodies with this system. The results of the immunoassay are evaluated as positive or negative on the basis of the antibody index (A.I.), which is a unique unit of the immunoassay. Therefore, in this study, we assessed the utility of BioPlex2200 immunoassay by evaluating its basic performance and comparing this assay with enzyme immunoassay (EIA). The analytical performance of BioPlex2200 showed good precision for within-run validation, whereas between-day validation varies with the subset of antibodies. This BioPlex2200 immunoassay was affected by several interference materials, and thus needs to be improved. The concordance rate of this system with an EIA method was good. Our results suggest that the detection of anti-EBV antibodies with the BioPlex2200 immunoassay system is useful for the rapid diagnosis of EBV infection.
