Development and evaluation of indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect Epstein-Barr virus infection based on gp125 viral capsid antigen

Epstein-Barr virus is a member of the herpesviridae family which is spreaded by direct contact with infectious secretion. Serum IgM and IgG are antibodies to the Viral Capsid Antigen (VCA) which appear during infection and Involve in determining the infection status. The aim of this study is to design and evaluate Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) IgM and IgG indirect ELISA using gp125 Viral Capsid antigen for diagnosis of EBV infection. In this study، ELISA test using Viral Capsid Antigen (gp125) for detection of EBV-specific IgG and IgM antibodies was designed and launched. To evaluate our home-made ELISA، 101 human sera (26 positive sera and 75 negative sera) were tested with VCA IgM ELISA and 105 human sera (98 positive sera and 7 negative sera) were tested with VCA IgG ELISA. To determine the specificity، 24 serum samples from patients without mononucleosis infection were used. The samples were simultaneously evaluated for VCA IgG and VCA IgM by commercial ELISA kit and with the indirect IF test. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 15 and McNemar test. Our results displayed the relative sensitivity، relative specificity and agreement of 92%، 96% and 95% respectively for the VCA IgM ELISA and the relative sensitivity، relative specificity and agreement of 96. 6%، 88. 9% and 95% respectively for the VCA IgG ELISA when compared with commercial ELISA kit. VCA IgG ELISA showed 97% sensitivity، 100% specificity and 97. 1% agreement when compared with indirect IF and the 100% positive declarative value. Nature of the coated antigen has an important role in increasing the sensitivity and specificity. In other words، when the native antigen (Our home-made ELISA) is used in the ELISA test، the test has a high specificity but when the synthetic antigen (ELISA kits from Equipar Diagnostics -Italy) is used the sensitivity will go up، so increasing the sensitivity and specificity of the test it is recommended to use، both antigens in the ELISA design