School of Medicine Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2022
Abstract
The diagnosis of latent tuberculosis (TB) infection (LTBI) is critical to improve TB treatment and control, and the T-SPOT.TB test is a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot assay used for this purpose. The objective of the study was to increase automation and extend the time between blood collection and processing for the T-SPOT.TB test from 0 to 8 h to 0 to 54 h. The previous maximum time between blood collection and processing for the T-SPOT.TB test is 32 h using T-Cell Xtend. For this, we compared the T-SPOT.TB test using manual peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) isolation by density gradient separation at 0 to 8 h (reference method, control arm) to an automated PBMC isolation method using magnetic beads (T-Cell Select kit) at 0 to 55 h postcollection. A total of 620 subjects were enrolled from 4 study sites, and blood samples were collected from each volunteer, comprising 1,850 paired samples in total. Overall agreement between both methods was 96.8% (confidence interval [CI], 95.9 to 97.6%), with 95.8% (CI, 93.5 to 97.5%) positive and 97.1% negative agreement (CI, 96.1 to 97.9%). In summary, there was a strong overall agreement between the automated and manual T-SPOT.TB test processing methods. The results suggest that the T-SPOT.TB test can be processed using automated positive selection with magnetic beads using T-Cell Select to decrease hands-on time. Also, this cell isolation method allowed for the time between blood collection and processing to range from 0 to 55 h. Additional studies in larger and diverse patient populations including immunocompromised and pediatric patients are needed.
Recommended Citation
Wang, S. H., Rajaram, M., Trollip, A., Wu, Q., Ayala, D., Garza, D., Benavidez, M. A., Fox, K., Aguillón-Durán, G. P., Vargas-Orozco, E. A., Torres, L., Yu, L., Ahmed, S. R., Aspden, M., Jackson-Soutter, T., Coxon, C., Brignall, R., & Restrepo, B. I. (2022). Novel Automation of an Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Spot Assay Testing Method: Comparable Diagnostic Performance of the T-SPOT.TB Test Using Manual Density Gradient Cell Isolation versus Automated Positive Selection with the T-Cell Select Kit. Journal of clinical microbiology, 60(9), e0055122. https://doi.org/10.1128/jcm.00551-22
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Journal of clinical microbiology
DOI
10.1128/jcm.00551-22
Academic Level
faculty
Comments
© 2022 Wang et al.