Hemadsorption Immunosorbent Technique (HIT) for Detection of Japanese Encephalitis Specific IgM Antibody

Hemadsorption Innunosorbent Technique (HIT) was applied to detect JE-specific IgM antibody for serodiagnosis of Japanese Encephalitis (JE). The technique is based on the reaction of human sera with anti-human IgM immobilized onto a solid phase, followed by the detection of JE-specific IgM by the addition of a known quantity of JE virus haemagglutinin and goose erythrocytes. After centrifugation at 500 rpm. for 10 mins, JE-specific IgM-positive sera showed hemadsorption pattern when the titer was equal to or higher than 1:80. The result showed that HIT could be used for serodiagnosis of JE in a similar manner as MAC ELISA. though HIT seemed to be rather less sensitive than MAC ELISA, as judging by the percent of samples for positive cases (39.2% by HIT VS 44.2% by MAC ELISA). Since HIT is simpler, cheaper and more specific than MAC ELISA, this test may therefore be suitable for routine serodiagnosis of JE. Key words: Hemadsorption Immunosorbent Technique, Japanese Encephalitis IgM Antibody