Assay of humoral immunity to mumps virus

One hundred randomly chosen sera from blood donors from North London were a ssayed for antibodies to mumps virus by plaque reduction and microtitre neu tralisation assay, haemagglutination inhibition and in-house ELISA. The ass ay reproducibility was determined, and there was reasonable agreement betwe en antibody levels measured by the two neutralising methods. Neutralising a ntibody levels measured by either method were low but the strain used in th e assay had a large effect on the antibody titres observed. Titres measured by neutralisation assay, HI assay and ELISA did not correlate well. Assess ment of immunity to mumps virus remains problematical. (C) 1999 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All Fights reserved.