Millenium Health Tips

Recently ELISA methods are applied to the diagnosis of EBV infection. The methods using cellular extracts from cells transformed by the virus do not apply to this virus since they are highly nonspecific.

Alternatively we have used both purified proteins, synthetic peptides and recombinant proteins. GP125 has been used purified from P3HR1 line with which it has obtained 95% sensitivity and specificity of 100%.

In regard to the use of synthetic peptides, was applied to p62, whose sequence corresponds to a region of EBNA1, to develop a test to differentiate IgM and IgG responses.

The test however suffered from a lack of sensitivity when compared with benchmarks, in fact its sensitivity is very similar to tests that measure AH.

Very recently, trials have used synthetic peptides VAC, p18 or a fraction thereof of 56 amino acids, which have the immunodominant regions of the capsid antigen of these tests have only limited information but very satisfying in terms of correlation between serology and clinic patients.

There are ELISA tests that detect IgG antibodies to EBNA (using the recombinant p72 and p58). and IgG, IgM and IgA against EA, EA employing recombinant (p54 and p138) with values of sensitivity and specificity of 94 and 100% respectively which enable the diagnosis of MI when used together as a profile.

On the other hand, has developed a compact ELISA used as antigen a mixture of VCA, EA and EBNA, controlled with monoclonal antibodies directed against p58, GP125, and p72 IgM detection with this assay shows a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 89%.