ABSTRACT
Because of the global spread of Zika virus, accurate and high-throughput diagnostic immunoassays are needed. We compared the sensitivity and specificity of 5 commercially available Zika virus serologic assays to the recommended protocol of Zika virus IgM-capture ELISA and plaque-reduction neutralization tests. Most commercial immunoassays showed low sensitivity, which can be increased.
Subject(s)
Immunoassay/methods , Zika Virus Infection/virology , Zika Virus/isolation & purification , Antibodies, Viral/analysis , Antibodies, Viral/immunology , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/methods , Humans , Immunoglobulin G/analysis , Immunoglobulin G/immunology , Immunoglobulin M/analysis , Immunoglobulin M/immunology , Neutralization Tests/methods , Sensitivity and Specificity , Zika Virus/immunology , Zika Virus Infection/diagnosisABSTRACT
In May 2003, Canada became the 22nd country outside of the United Kingdom to report a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an animal not known to be imported from a country with cattle previously affected by this fatal, transmissible prion disease. Despite extensive testing of thousands of other animals that may have been exposed to contaminated feed at the same time as the affected animal, no evidence has been found for other infections. This finding leaves room for conjectures that the single confirmed case arose spontaneously, perhaps (by analogy with human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) as a result of a somatic protein misfolding event or a novel germline mutation. Here we present DNA sequence data from the affected animal's prion protein coding sequence that argue definitively against the latter hypothesis.
