[Lanthanide immunofluorescent analysis: virus detection and the serodiagnosis of viral infections]

This communication summarizes 10-year experience gained by the author in developing and using the lanthanide immunofluorescence assay (LIFA) for the laboratory diagnosis of viral infections. The bulk of studies has been conducted on natural focal viruses, including Venezuelan equine encephalitis, tick-borne encephalitis, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, California serogroup, and other viruses. Moreover, test systems have been developed for diagnosis of infections caused by herpes simplex and cytomegaloviruses. The studies performed have demonstrated the sensitivity of LIFA in the indication of viruses in the laboratory materials and the samples from natural foci is 10-100 times higher than that of enzyme immunoassay and it is close to that of the biological isolation assay; the specificity of LIFA is comparable to that of the neutralization reaction, but it is more accessible in practice due to the fact it does not require the use of living viruses and biological models. The results of detection of herpes viruses in the clinical samples by LIFA are shown to rather well correlate with the data of virus isolation in the cultured cells, with other diagnostic methods and with the clinical manifestations of diseases. LIFA is recommended for use in large-scale studies involving the monitoring of infection foci and the screening of risk population groups for social infectious diseases.