Goebel, P. Bradley2024-11-132024-11-131994-04http://hdl.handle.net/11603/36871The p24 antigen capture assay, the current immunoassay used to detect and quantitate human immunodeficiency virus, is an undesirable assay when analyzing plasma or serum from an HIV-1 infected person because anti-p24 antibodies interfere with the assay. Before development of an antigen capture assay that may be useful in analyzing samples from HIV-1 infected people, sera from HIV-1 positive people were tested for antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein of HIV-1, p7. Of 801 HIV-1 antibody positive sera tested, 100 (12.5%) were positive for anti-p7, indicating low anti-p7 seroprevalence in infected persons. An antigen capture assay for p7 was developed and compared to the p24 antigen capture assay in reconstruction experiments. HIV-1 diluted in normal plasma was readily detected by both the p7 and p24 antigen capture assays. The p7 antigen capture assay detected virus diluted in the HIV-1 positive plasma as efficiently as from normal plasma. However, the p24 capture assay was ineffective in detecting virus diluted in HIV-1 positive plasma, even at p24 input concentrations as high as 460 ng/ml. Even though the p7 antigen capture assay currently lacks the sensitivity to detect virus in the plasma if HIV-1 infected people, the reconstruction experiments indicate that with increased sensitivity the assay may prove to be useful in assessing viral quantity in HIV-1 infected individuals. The p7 antigen capture assay will be useful in neutralization studies even at the current level of sensitivity.112 pagesen-USText