Related Experiment Videos
What do western blot indeterminate patterns for human immunodeficiency virus mean in EIA-negative blood donors?
J Genesca1, J W Shih, B W Jett
1Department of Transfusion Medicine, Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
Insights
Western blot indeterminate (WBi) patterns are common in blood donors and recipients and do not indicate human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection or transmission. These results suggest WBi results are not reliable indicators of HIV-1 presence.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Virology
- Transfusion Medicine
Background:
- Western blot (WB) indeterminate (WBi) patterns in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) testing require careful interpretation.
- Understanding the specificity of WBi patterns is crucial for accurate HIV-1 screening in blood donation and transfusion settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the specificity of WBi patterns for HIV-1 antibodies.
- To determine the correlation between WBi patterns and actual HIV-1 infection or transmission.
Main Methods:
- 100 enzyme immunoassay (EIA) negative donors and their recipients were tested using WB.
- Serial samples from recipients with WBi patterns were analyzed for reproducibility.
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect HIV-1 gag and env sequences.
Main Results:
- 20% of donors exhibited WBi patterns, predominantly with a p24 band.
- WBi patterns in recipients were common and not significantly different from control groups receiving WB-negative blood.
- WBi results showed low reproducibility (35%) in serial testing.
- No recipients of WBi blood showed evidence of HIV-1 infection, transmission, or antigen positivity.
- PCR testing for HIV-1 sequences was negative in all participants.
Conclusions:
- WBi patterns are frequent in randomly selected blood donors and recipients.
- WBi patterns do not correlate with the presence of HIV-1 infection.
- WBi patterns do not indicate HIV-1 transmission through blood transfusion.
Abstract:
To investigate the specificity of western blot indeterminate (WBi) patterns for antibodies to the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), 100 enzyme immunoassay (EIA) negative donors from whom prospectively obtained recipient sera were available were tested by WB. 20 were WBi, with p24 being the predominant (70%) and generally the only band. Among recipients of WBi blood, 36% were WBi in their 6 month post-transfusion sample, but so were 42% of a control population that had received only WB-negative blood. When serial samples from recipients with a WBi pattern were tested on two occasions, only 35% of results were reproducible. No reciepient of WBi blood became EIA positive, true positive for WB, positive for HIV-1 antigen, or positive for EIA reactivity against recombinant p24 or gp41. The polymerase chain reaction was negative for gag and env HIV-1 sequences in all donors and recipients. Thus WBi patterns are exceedingly common in randomly selected donors and recipients and such patterns do not correlate with the presence of HIV-1 or the transmission of HIV-1 from donor to recipient.