Evaluation of flow cytometry-based fluorescent antibody to membrane antigen test to measure the humoral immunity against the varicella-zoster virus.

The fluorescent antibody to membrane antigen (FAMA) test is the gold standard for measuring the immunity induced by varicella vaccines with high sensitivity and specificity. However, certain aspects of the FAMA test, such as time consumption, non-automation, and subjective interpretation by observers using fluorescence microscopy, are obstacles to handling large amounts of samples. To overcome these hurdles, flow cytometry was adopted to analyze and compare the flow FAMA titer with the classic FAMA titer. In addition, to save time in FAMA antigen preparation and reduce lot-to-lot variation, the stability of the FAMA antigen stored in liquid nitrogen was investigated. The FAMA test was performed on sera from 229 children, and antibody titers were analyzed using fluorescence microscopy (classic FAMA) and flow cytometry (flow FAMA). For comparison, glycoprotein enzyme immunoassay (gpEIA) titer was also measured. A strong correlation was found between the flow and classic FAMA titers, and the flow FAMA and gpEIA titers, with Pearson's

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© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.