Confirmation of HIV seropositivity: comparison of a novel radioimmunoprecipitation assay to immunoblotting and virus culture.

A recently developed radioimmunoprecipitation assay, using 125I-labeled human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral proteins enriched for glycoproteins gp120env, gp41env (GRIPA), was compared to the immunoblot assay with respect to sensitivity and specificity for the detection of antibodies to HIV. Longitudinal sets of serum samples of seroconverting homosexual men were studied, as were sera of six blood-bank donors likely to be false-positive in immunoblot. In addition, HIV isolation was attempted from white blood cells of these blood-bank donors and of seropositive and seronegative individuals. In sets of seroconversion samples, the GRIPA appeared at least as sensitive as the immunoblot. Some sera already were clearly positive in the GRIPA at a time when there was only weak reactivity in immunoblot. In contrast, sera from blood-bank donors that were regarded as false-positive in immunoblot were negative in GRIPA. Virus culture from these donors was also negative. It is concluded that reactivity in immunoblot to core proteins only may well be false-positive, whereas antibody reactivity in the radioimmunoprecipitation assay to p24gag solely suggests ongoing seroconversion. This feature, in addition to a sensitivity for anti-gp120env comparable to immunoblotting, makes the GRIPA a useful confirmatory assay in sera that yield conflicting results in other HIV-antibody assays.