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Published on: July 13, 2019
Performance of a commercial assay for detecting JC Polyomavirus DNA in human samples
Sébastien Lhomme1, Isabelle Da Silva2, Oriane Cabanel2
1Laboratoire de Virologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse, 31300 Toulouse, France; Institut Toulousain des Maladies Infectieuses et Inflammatoires (Infinity), CNRS U5051, INSERM U1291, Université Toulouse III, Toulouse, France.
Introduction:
We evaluated the performance of the automated AltoStar JCV PCR platform for detecting and quantifying JC Polyomavirus (JCPyV) DNA in samples including urine, plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.
Methods And Results:
Using the NIBSC JCPyV DNA standard, the assay was linear from 1 to 6 log IU/mL standard and the limit of detection determined by Probit analysis corresponded to 9.3 [95 % CI: 7.0-16.5] IU/mL. Specificity was accessed by testing urines containing a high concentration of BK Polyomavirus; none tested positive for JCPyV. The intra-run and inter-run standard deviations were 0.02 IU/mL and 0.35 IU/mL, respectively. Lastly, clinical performance was determined by testing 45 samples quantified previously with a laboratory-developed test (LDT). The assays were concordant for 42/45 samples. One of the 3 samples that tested negative with the AltoStar assay had a low JCpyV DNA concentration. We were unable to re-test the 3 negative samples due to insufficient volume. A conservation problem could not be ruled out for the 3 samples with discordant results.
Conclusions:
The AltoStar platform enables highly accurate testing for the detection and quantification of JCPyV DNA with very low limit of detection. This allowed us to shorten turnaround times and save time for technical staff.
