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Serogroup determination of Neisseria meningitidis by whole‐cell ELISA, dot‐blotting and agglutination
Author(s) -
Rosenqvist EINAR,
Wedege ELISABETH,
HØIby E. ARNE,
FrØHolm L. ODDVAR
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1990.tb01063.x
Subject(s) - neisseria meningitidis , agglutination (biology) , microbiology and biotechnology , monoclonal antibody , virology , polyclonal antibodies , blot , antibody , dot blot , asymptomatic carrier , biology , bacteria , medicine , immunology , asymptomatic , dna , biochemistry , genetics , pathology , gene
Two new methods for serogrouping of meningococci, whole‐cell ELISA and dot‐blotting, with monoclonal antibodies against serogroups A, B, C, Y and W135 were compared with slide‐agglutination applying polyclonal sera. In addition to a panel of strains with previously determined serogroups by slide‐agglutination, two strain collections of meningococci were studied: 1) 50 strains isolated from patients with systemic meningococcal disease in Norway during the winter 1987–1988; 2) 133 throat strains isolated from asymptomatic carriers over the same period. For the disease strains all three methods gave identical results, whereas some carrier strains which were non‐agglutinable or polyagglutinable by slide‐agglutination were serogroupable by the two other methods. All the systemic strains and about half of the carrier strains were serogroupable. We find that whole‐cell ELISA and dot‐blotting are specific, easy to read and more sensitive compared to slide‐agglutination, but the former methods are at present limited by the availability of monoclonal antibodies against only serogroups A, B, C, Y and W135.