Detection of Antibodies to Chlamydia trachomatis With Peptide-Based Species-Specific Enzyme Immunoassay

We have evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of a new synthetic peptide-based species-specific enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for detection of Chlamydia trachomatis IgG and IgA antibodies.

Synthetic peptides derived from variable domain IV of major outer membrane protein (MOMP) were used as antigen in indirect EIA. IgG and IgA antibodies were measured in parallel with serum samples from C. trachomatis culture positive, culture negative, and antigen positive patients, and women with suspected C. trachomatis infection and blood donors. Sera from children under 15 years of age were used as controls.

Culture positive women, culture positive men, and antigen positive women had positive peptide serology in 84.2%, 61.3%, and 93.1% of the cases, respectively. Among C. trachomatis suspected women, the antibody prevalence was 63.6%. Randomly collected blood donors showed a prevalence of 21.5%. Children with C. pneumoniae antibodies determined with the microimmuno-fluorescence (MIF) method did not show any reactivity in the C. trachomatis peptide EIA.

The results suggest that the new EIA test is highly specific for C. trachomatis, and C. pneumoniae antibodies do not interfere. Both IgG and IgA antibodies appear within at least 2 weeks in acute phase of infection among both culture positive and culture negative patients.