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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, November 2004, p. 1148-1153, Vol. 11, No. 6
1071-412X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.11.6.1148-1153.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Use of Viral Lysate Antigen Combined with Recombinant Protein in Western Immunoblot Assay as Confirmatory Test for Serodiagnosis of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Genelabs Diagnostics Pte. Ltd.,¹ Singapore and Collaborative Anti-Viral Research Group, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore, Republic of Singapore²

Received 27 May 2004/ Returned for modification 4 August 2004/ Accepted 20 August 2004

A Western immunoblot assay for confirmatory serodiagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was developed utilizing viral lysate antigens combined with a recombinant nucleocapsid protein, GST-N (glutathione S-transferase-nucleocapsid) of the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). The viral lysate antigens were separated by electrophoresis and transblotted onto nitrocellulose membranes. The resultant membrane was subsequently added with the GST-N recombinant protein at a specific location. The positions of bands corresponding to some of the structural proteins immobilized on the membrane were then located and verified with mouse or rabbit antisera specific to the respective proteins. The Western immunoblot assay was able to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV in all 40 serum specimens from SARS patients and differentiate the SARS-positive samples from those of the healthy donor or non-SARS patient controls (150 samples) when set criteria were followed. In addition, when the immunoblot was used to test samples considered falsely positive by an in-house-developed SARS-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, band patterns different from those with samples from SARS patients were obtained.

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