Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 27, 2026
Rapid and Specific Immunomagnetic Isolation of Mouse Primary Oligodendrocytes
Published on: May 21, 2018
Detection of oligoclonal immunoglobulins in cerebrospinal fluid by an immunofixation-peroxidase method
Sophie Richard1, Véronique Miossec, Jean-François Moreau
1Laboratory of Immunology, Centre Hospitalier Régional et Universitaire de Bordeaux, 33076 Bordeaux, France.
Background:
The detection of intrathecal synthesis of immunoglobulins is used in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). We tested the semiautomated immunofixation-peroxidase (IFPOD) technique, which uses high-resolution agarose gel electrophoresis (HRAGE) directly followed by immunofixation with a peroxidase-labeled anti-IgG antiserum to detect oligoclonal immunoglobulins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
Methods:
We analyzed 230 consecutive matched serum/CSF pairs that arrived in the laboratory over a 6-month period with both IFPOD and our routine techniques, immunofixation electrophoresis (IFE) and HRAGE. For IFPOD, CSF samples were not concentrated before testing.
Results:
Among the 230 samples were 12 clinically definite MS, 33 clinically probable, and 20 clinically possible MS samples. IFPOD and HRAGE + IFE each detected oligoclonal IgG in CSF in 10, 16, and 7 cases of these respective groups. For clinically definite MS, sensitivity and specificity (95% confidence intervals) were, respectively, 83% (51-97%) and 79% (73-84%).
Conclusions:
The IFPOD technique performs comparably to other analytical methods, without the requirement for sample concentration, and may represent an attractive alternative in testing for intrathecal immunoglobulin synthesis.
