Sensitive solid-phase immune electron microscopy double-antibody technique with gold-immunoglobulin G complexes for detecting rotavirus in cell culture and feces.

A new solid-phase immune electron microscopy double-antibody colloidal-gold technique (SPIEMDAGT) was developed and compared with direct electron microscopy, direct immune electron microscopy, and enzyme immunoassay for detecting rotavirus. Guinea pig and rabbit antirotavirus antisera were used as capture and detector antibodies, respectively, and goat anti-rabbit immunoglobulin G-gold complexes were employed as a label. Animal rotavirus in cell culture media and human virus in stool specimens were detected by this method. On average, SPIEMDAGT detected 800 times more virus particles than direct electron microscopy and 45 times more particles than direct immune electron microscopy and yielded 20% more positives than enzyme immunoassay. SPIEMDAGT could detect not only viral antigen associated with morphologically recognizable particles but also antigen present when whole virus particles were not visible.