This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Other Versions of this Article: CVI.00079-08v1 15/6/981    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Copyright Information Books from ASM Press MicrobeWorld Google Scholar Articles by Jobe, D. A. Articles by Callister, S. M. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Jobe, D. A. Articles by Callister, S. M.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, June 2008, p. 981-985, Vol. 15, No. 6
1071-412X/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/CVI.00079-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Significantly Improved Accuracy of Diagnosis of Early Lyme Disease by Peptide Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Based on the Borreliacidal Antibody Epitope of Borrelia burgdorferi OspC

Microbiology Research Laboratory,¹ Department of Medical Research, Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation,² Section of Infectious Diseases, Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601,⁴ Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, Madison, Wisconsin 53706³

Received 27 February 2008/ Returned for modification 27 March 2008/ Accepted 7 April 2008

Highly specific borreliacidal antibodies are induced by infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, and the immunodominant response during early Lyme disease is specific for an epitope within the 7 amino acids nearest the C terminus of OspC. We evaluated the ability of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on a synthetic peptide (OspC7) that matched the region to detect the response and compared the sensitivity during early Lyme disease to that for an FDA-approved Western blot. When the optical density value was adjusted to 98% specificity based on the results from testing normal or uncharacterized sera (n = 236) or sera from patients with blood factors or illnesses that commonly produce antibodies that cross-react with B. burgdorferi antigens (n = 77), 115 (73%) of 157 sera from patients likely to have early Lyme disease were positive for immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies and 17 (11%) also had IgG antibodies. In addition, the IgM ELISA reactivities and the titers of antibodies detected by a flow cytometric borreliacidal antibody test correlated closely (r = 0.646). Moreover, the IgM ELISA was significantly more sensitive (P < 0.001) than the Western blot procedure. The findings therefore confirmed that the peptide IgM ELISA detected OspC borreliacidal antibodies and provided strong evidence that the test can eliminate the necessity for confirming early Lyme disease by a supplementary test such as Western blotting.

Published ahead of print on 16 April 2008.