State-of-the-art serological techniques for detection of antibodies against tick-borne encephalitis virus

Quality control assessment for the serological diagnosis of tick borne encephalitis virus infections

“…Three out of 6 laboratories using exclusively the Virion/Serion assay obtained false positive results with the anti-WNV sample, compared to 3 out of 13 using the DADE assay or the 3 out of 6 for the Progen assay, demonstrating that specificity of the 3 assays is different. The four laboratories using the EUROIMMUN reagents did not result in any false positive reactions with this serum (Sonnenberg et al, 2004). In general all the commercial assays yielded very good results, demonstrating a real improvement of the assays by the manufacturers and with less incorrect results than in the previous evaluation (Niedrig et al, 2001).…”

Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Nonstructural Protein 1 IgG Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Differentiating Infection versus Vaccination Antibody Responses

“…Commercially available test kits are based on the detection of specific antibodies against the whole TBEV virus (WV) and in particular against the structural E protein (envelope protein). Patients with other flavivirus infections (e.g., WNV, YFV, or DENV), as well as vaccinated individuals (e.g., JE, YF), may show cross-reactive antibodies, especially if a serological response of the secondary type (at least two flavivirus infections or vaccines) is present (18,21,38). TBE diagnosis is virtually impossible with such kits if a TBE vaccination is administered shortly before or after possible TBEV exposure.…”

“…By this point, TBEV infection can only be diagnosed by serological antibody testing (16,17). Consequently, TBE diagnostic and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) case definitions are based on the detection of TBEV specific antibodies by different commercially available enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) (16) or indirect immunofluorescence assays (18).…”

Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus: A General Overview

“…As the majority of patients come for medical attention when neurological symptoms are manifest, it is the current experts' opinion that virus isolation and RT-PCR at this time are of minor importance for the diagnosis of TBE, because at the beginning of the second phase of illness the virus itself is only rarely detectable in blood and CSF. Therefore, the diagnosis of TBE is mainly done by serological methods, usually enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on purified virions or recombinant virus-like particles, which have been developed towards higher specificity and sensitivity in the last decade (Holzmann, 2003;Sonnenberg et al, 2004;Günther and Haglund, 2005;Ludolfs et al, 2009). However, detection by PCR methods could be valuable for an early differential diagnosis of TBE (Saksida et al, 2005;Schultze et al, 2007).…”