Dalby T, Sørensen C, Petersen JW, Krogfelt KA. Pertussis serology: assessment of IgG anti‐PT ELISA for replacement of the CHO cell assay. APMIS 2010; 118: 968–72.
Two types of serological assays are commonly used for the assessment of pertussis vaccine‐induced antibodies; the Chinese hamster ovary cell (CHO cell) assay and the immunoglobulin G (IgG) anti pertussis toxin (PT) enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (IgG anti‐PT ELISA). Recently, both the techniques have been modified to improve performance with sera with interfering activity (CHO cell assay) or with heat‐treated sera (IgG anti‐PT ELISA). These two improved techniques were compared by the analysis of 100 individual serum samples from a previous clinical trial and 213 sera from a longitudinal serum collection from 20 Danish adults recently vaccinated with the Danish acellular pertussis vaccine. The comparison showed a significant linear correlation between the results of the two assays with a p‐value of <0.0001 for the 100 individual samples. We, therefore, conclude that the improved IgG anti‐PT ELISA can be used as a replacement for the often troublesome and time‐consuming CHO cell assay for the measurement of vaccine‐induced human antibodies to PT.