Neutralizing, Hemagglutination-Inhibiting and Group Complement-Fixing Antibody Responses in Human Adenovirus Infections

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Abstract
Summary: Neutralization and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests were compared for sensitivity and specificity, and complement fixation (CF) tests to adenovirus group antigen for sensitivity, in the detection of antibody in individuals with adenovirus isolations. Neutralization tests revealed the highest proportion of significant homotypic antibody increases (52%) followed by HI tests on Pseudomonas-filtrate-treated sera (48%), HI tests on untreated sera (34%) and HI tests on kaolintreated sera (30%). CF tests with adenovirus group antigen revealed significant antibody increases in only 38% of the patients, and most of these increases occurred in patients infected with adenovirus type 4, the viral type used for preparation of the antigen. In a number of patients homotypic neutralizing and HI antibody occurred independently of one another. An association was noted between age and production of homotypic neutralizing and HI antibody: antibody was absent in a higher proportion of sera from infants and young children than sera from young adults. Differences were noted in the frequency of occurrence in human sera of nonspecific HA inhibitor for the different adenovirus types, the highest proportion of sera showing inhibitors for adenovirus types 1, 2, 4 and 5, with few showing inhibitor for adenovirus types 3, 7, 10 and 11. Treatment of human sera with filtrates from a psychrophylic Pseudomonas sp. was found to be as effective as kaolin treatment for removal of nonspecific inhibitors of adenovirus hemagglutination, and it showed less tendency to remove specific antibody.