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Serological diagnosis of toxoplasmosis in pregnancy: comparison between a manual commercial ELISA assay and the automated VIDAS® kit

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Abstract

Knowledge of the toxoplasmosis serological status in pregnant women is important to allow adequate management for the prevention of congenital toxoplasmosis of those who are not immunized. Serological screening is generally carried out using commercial kits to determine the presence or absence of immunoglobulins M or G in the maternal blood. Robust results are therefore needed. We evaluated the performances of a commercial ELISA assay composed of several recombinant parasite antigens and of a commercial assay using parasite lysate to determine the serological status against Toxoplasma gondii of African pregnant women. A recruitment of 106 pregnant women during their third trimester of pregnancy was carried out in Benin. Serologies were performed with recomWell Toxoplasma IgM and IgG kits. Subsequently, the serological assays were carried out by an automaton method with the VIDAS® TOXO IgM and IgG II kits. Here we compared recomWell Toxoplasma to VIDAS® TOXO results. Reproducibility tests of the recomWell kits were assessed following the discrepancies observed in the results. Of 106 plasmas tested, 47 showed anti-T. gondii IgG (44.3%), including 5 with IgM and high IgG avidity (4.7%). Of the two techniques, VIDAS® TOXO was more robust and specific for IgG while the recomWell Toxoplasma gave more false positive results. The combination of several techniques for the determination of serological toxoplasmosis status remains relevant. Methods using native proteins are closer to the reality of the environment. Therefore, kits using recombinant proteins should be tested on highly geographically diverse populations to refine their composition.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from Open Science Framework database (https://osf.io) under https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5VPJ9.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Institut de Médecine et d’Epidémiologie Appliquée (IMEA) for financial support (grant 0602DIRmba). We are grateful to CHU-MEL maternity, directed by Xavier Perrin, nurses and pregnant women who wanted to participate to CoaLa project. We thank the Institut des Sciences Biomédicales Appliquées (ISBA), Cotonou, Benin as well as the virology team from the Bichat-Claude Bernard hospital, Paris, France, for their welcome. We are particularly grateful to the team of the parasitology unit from the Bichat-Claude Bernard hospital for welcome and technical support.

Funding

This work was supported by the Institut de Médecine et d’Epidémiologie Appliquée (IMEA) (grant 0602DIRmba).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universite Paris Cite, MERIT, IRD, Paris, F-75006, France

    Magalie Dambrun, Nadine Fievet, Sandrine Houzé & Florence Migot-Nabias

  2. Centre d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Pathologies Associées à la Grossesse et à L’Enfance, Cotonou, Bénin

    Nawal Sare, Bertin Vianou & Achille Massougbodji

  3. Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de la Mère et de L’Enfant-Lagune (CHU-MEL), 01 BP 107, Cotonou, Bénin

    Richard Amagbégnon

  4. Institut de Recherche Clinique du Bénin, Cotonou, Bénin

    Achille Massougbodji

  5. Service de Parasitologie, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, Groupe Hospitalier Bichat Claude-Bernard, Paris, France

    Sandrine Houzé

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  1. Magalie Dambrun
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Contributions

MD and FMN conceived and designed the project. MD, NS, BV, and RA performed the laboratory experiments. NF, AM, and SH brought technical support or result validation. MD, SH, and FMN assessed statistical analysis and data interpretation. MD, SH, and FMN wrote the paper. All authors reviewed the manuscript and approved it for publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Magalie Dambrun.

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Ethics approval

The CoaLa “Caracterisation de la production d’immunOglobulines spécifiques d’antigènes pArasitaires par les Lymphocytes B néonAtaux dans le cadre d’infections congénitales” feasibility study was granted by the National Ethics Committee for Health Research (Comité National d’Ethique pour la Recherche en Santé, CNERS) of Benin under n°40du28/09/2017. Informed written consent was obtained from all the women before their inclusion in the study with, on the one hand, the possibility of withdrawing from the study at any time and, on the other hand, the authorization to use the data.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Dambrun, M., Sare, N., Vianou, B. et al. Serological diagnosis of toxoplasmosis in pregnancy: comparison between a manual commercial ELISA assay and the automated VIDAS® kit. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 42, 759–769 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-023-04603-y

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