title: A comparison of three methods for detection of antibodies against the major core protein p24 of human immunodeficiency virus.
abstract: The native major core protein p24 of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was immunoaffinity purified by a monoclonal antibody and used to develop an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (inELISA) for detecting p24 antibodies in human sera. Its ability to detect p24 antibodies was compared to that of the immunoblotting test (IBT) and a commercial available competition ELISA (compELISA) employing recombinant HIV core protein. In tests on 60 serum samples the overall agreement of the inELISA and the IBT was 93.3%. Fifty-two samples were p24 antibody positive in both the inELISA and the IBT and of these 24 (46.2%) were positive in the compELISA. All compELISA positive samples were derived from healthy individuals, whereas of the 28 (53.8%) compELISA negative samples 1 was from a patient with acute HIV infection, 18 from healthy individuals and 9 from ARC/AIDS patients. The compELISA was able to distinguish among healthy persons with normal or low T-helper cell count (P = 0.048), as was the inELISA when p24 antibodies were titrated (P = 0.027). The inELISA equals IBT in specificity and sensitivity, is convenient and is very suitable for titration of p24 antibodies.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Tumor Virology, Fibiger Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: B O
authors.initials: BO
authors.lastname: Lindhardt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ulrich
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kusk
mesh_terms: D000386:AIDS-Related Complex / Q000175:diagnosis; D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24; D015151:Immunoblotting; D012191:Retroviridae Proteins / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D015483:HIV Antibodies; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24; D012191:Retroviridae Proteins