[Detection of specific circulating immune complexes in leprosy patients by mouse monoclonal antibody against phenolic glycolipid-I].

In this article, we first report the development of a new test for detecting specific circulating immune complexes (SCIC) in the sera of leprosy patients: This test was named monoclonal antibody specific binding assay (McAb/SBA). We screened for SCIC (PGLI-IgG, PGLI-IgM) in 200 serum batches from 140 leprosy patients, 20 tuberculosis patients and 40 normal controls, and compared the McAb/SBA with PGL1/ELISA. The results indicated that: 1) McAb/SBA was highly sensitive (90%) and specific (95%). Its Youden's Index was 90. Except for its specificity of 95%, the sensitivity (85%) and Youden's Index (85) of the PGL1/ELISA test were lower than those of McAB/SBA; 2) The positive rate (34/40) in paucibacillary patients using McAb/SBA was higher than that (28/40) in PGL1/ELISA; 3) The increase and decline of MOD values in McAb/SBA were associated with BI. McAb/SBA is a new method for detecting SCIC (PGL1-IgG, PGL1-IgM) in the sera of leprosy patients, and it is more sensitive than PGL1-ELISA.