We have evaluated three anti-hepatitis E virus (anti-HEV) immunoglobulin M (IgM) assays, the EIAgen HEV IgM assay (Adaltis), the HEV IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay 3.0, and the Assure HEV IgM rapid test (MP Diagnostics), for the routine detection of acute genotype 3 HEV. Their sensitivities were fairly good (90%, 88%, and 82%), and their specificities were excellent (100%, 99.5%, and 100%).The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an RNA virus whose genome comprises three open reading frames (ORFs). Four HEV genotypes are identified (12). In countries where HEV is endemic, most of the HEV samples belong to genotype 1 or 2 (9). Autochthonous infections also occur in industrialized countries with genotype 3 HEV (2, 10, 14). Most of the serological assays for diagnosing HEV use recombinant proteins derived from the ORF2 and/or ORF3 proteins. It has been reported that anti-ORF2 antibodies are not specific (13). The sensitivities of the serological assays for immunoglobulin M (IgM) have been found to vary greatly, from 42% to 93% (6,8,11,16). Current commercial serological assays are based on genotype 1 and 2 antigens and thus may be less sensitive for detecting infections with genotype 3 or 4 (4, 15). As there is increasing awareness of HEV in industrialized countries, we have assessed the performance of three serological assays for diagnosing genotype 3 HEV infections: two microplate enzyme immunoassay tests, the EIAgen HEV IgM kit (Adaltis) and the HEV IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) 3.0 (MP Diagnostics), and an immunochromatographic assay, the Assure HEV IgM rapid test (MP Diagnostics).The sensitivities of the three IgM assays were assessed using 50 HEV RNA-positive samples from French patients with symptoms of acute hepatitis (49 samples with genotype 3 HEV

423Pour citer cet article : Thevenet I, Benat C, Chauzeix J, Blancher A, Puissant-Lubrano B. Évaluation des performances analytiques du turbidimètre SPAPLUS ® pour le dosage des immunoglobulines et de la bêta-2 microglobuline dans le sérum.