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Updated: Mar 18, 2026
A Protein Microarray Assay for Serological Determination of Antigen-specific Antibody Responses Following Clostridium difficile Infection
Published on: June 15, 2018
False-Positive Clostridium difficile in Negative-Control Reactions Peak and Then Decrease with Repetitive
Alexander Rodriguez-Palacios1, Henry R Stämpfli2, Yung-Fu Chang3
1Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14580, USA; Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Disease, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Abstract:
Aberrant false-positive reactions in negative-controls during ELISA testing for Clostridium difficile indicated the potential for false-diagnoses. Experiments with 96-well products showed a maximum peak of false-positive immunoassay reactions with the provided negative-control reagents after 5 refrigeration-to-room temperature cycles (P < 0.001), decreasing thereafter with additional refrigeration cycles. Because repetitive refrigeration causes a peak of false-positives, the use of single negative-controls per ELISA run might be insufficient to monitor aberrant preanalytical false-positives if immunoassays are subject to repetitive refrigeration.
