A mu-capture immunoassay for detection of human herpes virus-6 (HHV-6) IgM antibodies in human serum.

BACKGROUND

Human herpes virus-6 (HHV-6) was first isolated in 1986. It has been shown to cause exanthema subitum and has been associated with various other diseases. HHV-6 infection is widespread, and more than 90% of the population have antibodies against HHV-6 at the age of 2 years. Once acquired, the virus remains latent in the body. This makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about a causal relationship between the demonstration of HHV-6 and a specific disease.

OBJECTIVES

This work was to develop a mu-capture HHV-6 IgM enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) for use in routine diagnosis and for wide scale patient population analysis.

STUDY DESIGN

A mu-capture HHV-6 IgM ELISA was established. A total of 682 sera consisting of 585 sera from Danish blood donors and 97 sera from patients with autoimmune antibodies were analysed in the HHV-6 IGM ELISA. One hundred and ninety-two sera had earlier been analysed for total HHV-6 antibody content in a competitive ELISA, 94 sera were analysed for cytomegalovirus (CMV) IgM and 57 sera for Epstein Barr virus (EBV) antibodies, using different ELISA assays. The results for 12 primary infections with HHV-6 are also reported.

RESULTS

A HHV-6 IgM optical density (OD)-ratio was calculated according to a constant positive control. An empirical cut off of 0.5 HHV-6 IgM OD-ratio was chosen (with regard to the 10 HHV-6 seroconverters), which resulted in a specificity of 97.5% of the HHV-6 IgM ELISA. Two of the three donor sera with HHV-6 IgM OD-ratios more than 1.05 had total HHV-6 antibody titers significantly above the group with IgM OD-ratios below 0.7 consisting with HHV-6 reactivation. There was no cross reactions to EBV or CMV IgM positive sera.

CONCLUSION

The HHV-6 IgM ELISA seems valid to diagnose primary HHV-6 infection in particular in combination with the HHV-6 total antibody assay.