Delineation of false-positive HIV antibody response in patients with renal failure and history of multiple transfusions.

Four patients with a history of multiple blood transfusions who awaited renal transplantation were tested for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and found to be positive on enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and negative on Western blot. None of these patients had any clinical evidence of HIV infection. Absorption of these patients' sera with B-lymphoblastoid cell lines (B-LCL) positive for the serologic specificities DR3, DR4 (Dw4, Dw10, Dw14), and DR5 resulted in EIAs that were negative for HIV. Treatment of the B-LCL with an anti-DR monoclonal antibody (L243) interfered with the absorption of the serum sample by B-LCL. This indicates that the initial false-positive EIA results may be due to HLA antibodies. Furthermore, it was shown that these HLA antibodies are not limited in specificity to the HLA type of the host cell used in the preparation of the EIA reagents, but can consist of other DR specificities.