Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Nonstructural Protein 1 IgG Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Differentiating Infection versus Vaccination Antibody Responses
Philipp Girl, Malena Bestehorn, Sabine Zange, J Borde, Gerhard Dobler, Heiner von Buttlar
Abstract
, family Flaviviridae. Differentiation between infection-induced and vaccine-induced antibodies can be difficult and in many cases impossible, due to the increasing vaccination rate against TBEV. We present a new approach to detect antibodies against the TBEV nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) as a diagnostic marker, which is exclusively indicative for virus replication in natural infection, on the basis of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A total of 188 anonymous serum samples from the National Consultant Laboratory for TBEV were included in our study. The assay was validated according to the European Laboratory Norm DIN EN ISO 15189 for diagnostic use. The ELISA for the detection of TBEV NS1 specific IgG class antibodies has demonstrated a sensitivity of >94% and a specificity of >93% in broadly cross-reacting sera from patients with vaccinations against flaviviral diseases and single or multiple flavivirus infections, respectively. The detection of anti-NS1 antibodies is feasible and facilitates reliable differentiation between different flavivirus infections, TBEV infection, and TBE vaccination.