CHEMILUMINESCENCE IMMUNOASSAY TO DETECT ANTI-HTLV-I ANTIBODIES

A fully automated chemiluminescence immunoassay was developed for the detection of antibodies to HTLV-I. We used partially purified viral an tigens coated on small polystyrene beads together with acridinium este r-labeled anti-human immunoglobulin G mouse immunoglobulin G in this m ethod. A good agreement was observed between our proposed method, the indirect immunofluorescence assay, the particle-agglutination test and the enzyme immunoassay. This new method, which is simple, sensitive, specific and rapid, should be useful for mass screening of anti-HTLV-I antibodies.