Human Serum Antibodies to a Major Defined Epitope of Human Herpesvirus 8 Small Viral Capsid Antigen

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases Vol. 179; no. 4; pp. 1016 - 1020
• Main Authors: Tedeschi, Rosamaria, De Paoli, Paolo, Schulz, Thomas F., Dillner, Joakim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago, IL The University of Chicago Press 01.04.1999; University of Chicago Press; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Adolescent; Amino Acid Sequence; Antibodies; Antibodies, Viral - blood; Antigens; Antigens, Viral - immunology; Biological and medical sciences; Blood donation; Capsid - immunology; Concise Communications; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Epitopes; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Herpesviridae; Herpesvirus 8, Human - immunology; Human herpesvirus 8; Human immunodeficiency virus; Human viral diseases; Humans; Immunoglobulin G - blood; Infections; Infectious diseases; Kaposi sarcoma; Medical sciences; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Reactivity; Sensitivity and Specificity; Techniques used in virology; Viral diseases; Viral diseases with cutaneous or mucosal lesions and viral diseases of the eye; Virology; Gammaherpesvirinae; Performance evaluation; Human; Immunopathology; Skin disease; Antigenic determinant; Nucleotide sequence; Herpesviridae; AIDS; Serology; Malignant tumor; Immune deficiency; Open reading frame; Herpesvirus hominis 8; Infection; Virus; Kaposi sarcoma; Viral disease; Diagnosis; Capsid; Aminoacid sequence
• DOI: 10.1086/314657
• ISSN: 0022-1899

The major antibody-reactive epitope of the small viral capsid antigen (sVCA) of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) was defined by use of overlapping peptides. Strong IgG reactivity was found among ∼50% of 44 human immunodeficiency virus-positive or -negative patients with Kaposi's sarcoma and 13 subjects who were seropositive by immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for the latent HHV-8 nuclear antigen. Only 1 of 106 subjects seronegative for both lytic and latent HHV-8 antigens and 10 of 81 subjects IFA-seropositive only for the lytic HHV-8 antigen had strong IgG reactivity to this epitope. Among 534 healthy Swedish women, only 1.3% were strongly seropositive. Comparison of the peptide-based and purified sVCA protein-based ELISAs found 55% sensitivity and 98% specificity. However, only 1 of 452 serum samples from healthy women was positive in both tests. In conclusion, the defined sVCA epitope was a specific, but not very sensitive, serologic marker of active HHV-8 infection. Such infection appears to be rare among Swedish women, even with sexual risk-taking behavior.