[Analysis of false-positive associated with antibody tests for SARS-CoV in SLE patients]

Abstract

To discuss the false-positive of serological diagnostic testing for coronavirus antibody in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus(SLE), 66 normal individual and 31 SLE with non-SARS patients were detected for SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) antibody and RNA by enzymelinked immunosorbent assays(ELISA) and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR). The result showed 2/66 cases(3.0%) were positive of SARS-CoV-IgG antibody and 66 cases were negative of SARS-CoV-IgM antibody in the 66 cases healthy controls; in 31 cases with SLE, positive rates of SARS-CoV-IgG and IgM antibody were 58.1% (18/31) and 29% (9/31), respectively, in which 7 cases(22.6%) were positive of both SARS-CoV-IgG and IgM antibody. All samples of positive SARS-CoV-IgG and IgM antibody were negative by RT-PCR. The ELISA kit coated by non-purification antigen may induce the false-positive of SARS-CoV antibody in patients with SLE. This result suggested that the specificity of ELISA tests for SARS was excellent and has low false-positive rates when using SARS-CoV-IgG and IgM antibody tests. A possible cause of false-positive of SARS-CoV-IgG and IgM antibody in SLE patients is coated antigens with SARS-CoV and Vero-E6 cells in ELISA methods.