Detection of adenovirus hexon using monoclonal antibodies for antigen capture in ELISA.

The feasibility of using monoclonal antibodies to capture specific viral polypeptides in double monoclonal antibody (MAb) sandwich ELISA has been demonstrated. Ten MAbs with different reactivity patterns were used for antigen capture and four of them were labelled with horse radish peroxidase and used for the detection of specifically bound hexon antigen and for the determination of the lowest reacting hexon concentrations. Differences have been found in the effectiveness of the different MAbs used for capturing or detecting the antigen. Two assay systems (MAbs 1A3/1A3 and H12/1A3), which were the most sensitive for the hexon types studied could be useful for detection of the adenovirus hexons. Assay system MAb 2D1/2A1 and several combinations of MAb 2B2 proved to be specific for subgenus C.