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. 2004 Feb;10(2):304-10.
doi: 10.3201/eid1002.030731.

Serologic and molecular biologic methods for SARS-associated coronavirus infection, Taiwan

Ho-Sheng Wu  1 , Shu-Chun Chiu, Tsan-Chang Tseng, Szu-Fong Lin, Jih-Hui Lin, Yu-Hen Hsu, Mei-Ching Wang, Tsuey-Li Lin, Wen-Zieh Yang, Tian-Lin Ferng, Kai-Hung Huang, Li-Ching Hsu, Li-Li Lee, Jyh-Yuan Yang, Hour-Young Chen, Shun-Pi Su, Shih-Yan Yang, Shih-Yan Lin, Ting-Hsiang Lin, Ih-Sen Su
Affiliations

Serologic and molecular biologic methods for SARS-associated coronavirus infection, Taiwan

Ho-Sheng Wu et al. Emerg Infect Dis. 2004 Feb.

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has raised a global alert since March 2003. After its causative agent, SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), was confirmed, laboratory methods, including virus isolation, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and serologic methods, have been quickly developed. In this study, we evaluated four serologic tests ( neutralization test, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA], immunofluorescent assay [IFA], and immunochromatographic test [ICT]) for detecting antibodies to SARS-CoV in sera of 537 probable SARS case-patients with correlation to the RT-PCR. With the neutralization test as a reference method, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 98.2%, 98.7%, 98.7%, and 98.4% for ELISA; 99.1%, 87.8%, 88.1% and 99.1% for IFA; 33.6%, 98.2%, 95.7%, and 56.1% for ICT, respectively. We also compared the recombinant-based western blot with the whole virus-based IFA and ELISA; the data showed a high correlation between these methods, with an overall agreement of >90%. Our results provide a systematic analysis of serologic and molecular methods for evaluating SARS-CoV infection.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Polymerase chain reaction–positive rates of throat swab specimens collected on different days from probable SARS cases. If a patient had two or more specimens, the patient was only counted once.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Antibody positive rate of serum specimens collected on different days from probable SARS case-patients. If a patient had two or more specimens, the patient was only counted once.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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