Development of a New Limiting-Antigen Avidity Dot Immuno-Gold Filtration Assay for HIV-1 Incidence

Several laboratory assays on cross-sectional specimens for detecting recent HIV infections were developed, but these assays could not be applied in resource-limited and high HIV-incidence areas. This study describes the development of a rapid assay that can simultaneously detect the presence of HIV-1 antibodies of current and/or recent infection. The dot immuno-gold filtration assay (DIGFA) was used to detect recent infection on the principle of antibody avidity changes between recent and long-term infections. The dot immuno-gold silver staining filtration assay (DIGSSA) increases the sensitivity and accuracy of antibody detection by adding a silver staining step to the DIGFA. In the meantime the digital results were produced by the scanner for ambiguous specimens. Further, HIV-1 routine diagnostic antibody was detected simultaneously for improving practicability. The performance of the assays was then assessed through five serum panels with known serological statuses and seroconversion dates. The proportion of false recent infection (PFR) of the DIGSSA was obtained. Through the optimization of basic parameters for DIGSSA, six specimens were all classified correctly. DIGSSA demonstrated good repeatability and high sensitivity. The agreement of DIGSSA with the BED assay was 92.10% (κ = 0.65) and 95.36% with the LAg-Avidity assay (κ = 0.75). Moreover, the gray values of DIGSSA correlated well with BED ODn (R2 = 0.9397) and LAg-Avidity ODn (R2 = 0.9549). The PFR of DIGSSA was 2.73%, which was lower than that of the BED assay but higher than that of the LAg-Avidity assay. The DIGSSA can feasibly be applied to detect HIV infection and estimate HIV incidence.