Detection of mannophosphoinositide antigens in sputum of tuberculosis patients by dot enzyme immunoassay.

A simple and economical dot ELISA for the detection of mannophosphoinositide antigen in sputum samples of tuberculosis patients has been developed using affinity-purified antibodies. This test is able to detect free as well as bound antigen. Sputum samples from 94 patients suffering from tuberculosis and 30 non-tuberculosis patients were screened and an overall sensitivity and specificity of 89% and 93.3%, respectively, was obtained. The sensitivity of the test among the different groups of tuberculosis patients did not vary significantly.