Evaluation of a peptide-based enzyme immunoassay for anti-SARS coronavirus IgG antibody.

High throughput assays for anti-SARS-CoV IgG antibody detection are need for large-scale epidemiologic studies. The performance of a microplate enzyme immunoassay, DETECT-SARS was evaluated for the detection of anti-SARS-CoV IgG antibody. This assay is based on synthetic peptides derived from the nucleocapsid and spike proteins. The results showed that the assay provided a high degree of sensitivity (95.9%) for convalescent serum samples. The level of specificity was close to 90%, and did not show significant variation among different control groups. The high degree of sensitivity together with the high-throughput nature makes it advantageous as a screening assay for studies where handling of a large number of specimens is required. 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.