Solid-Phase Antigen Immunoassay for the Detection of Anti-Zona Pellucida-Antibodies in Clinically Defined Sera

Abstract

Summary:A new solid-phase antigen immunoassay was developed for the detection of anti-zona pellucidaantibodies. The assay was validated in a double blind study with clinically defmed sera. The new assay is easy to perform and large numbers of sera can be processed in one day. The antigen can be prepared in advance and stored until use. This represents an advantage over other methods, such äs immunofluorescence and RIA, which require fresh antigen preparation for each set of assays. With this new test ca. 7% of females and ca. 20% of males with unexplained infertility have shown elevated antibody concentrations compared with fertile controls. The estimated intra-assay and inter-assay CV were 8.5% and less than 10% respectively.

The Mammalian Egg Coat

“…Tests by PHAR on a total of 318 samples from the WHO Reference Bank for Reproductive Immunology (Mori et al 1985a) revealed a 3.1% positivity (3/96) among infertile women compared to 0.9% (21222) among control subjects (Table 4). Using the WHO samples and the RIBA methods Czuppon et al (1987) obtained a 14.3% positive reaction in the unexplained infertile group compared to 0% in control women, but 19.6% in control men. With a different method of PHAR, using human 0 Rh( +) erythrocyte as indicator cells, Dunbar tested 297 samples of WHO sera and found no positive reaction .…”

Infertility and Immunocontraception based on zona pellucida

“…To clarify these controversial results, intensive efforts were made to develop detection methods with enhanced sensitivities without nonspecific reactions. Several highly sensitive assays were proposed [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Quantitative radioimmunoassays revealed similar frequencies of anti-ZP antibodies in cases of unexplained infertility comparing fertile women and men [18,19].…”

Sperm–zona pellucida interaction and immunological infertility

“…14 AUTOANTIBODY TO ZONA PELLUCIDA F ROM CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, the production of autoantibodies against ZP has been implicated in the development of immunological infertility in some women. 6,7,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Because the ZP plays an important role in such reproductive processes as expression of the sperm receptor site(s) and protection against polyspermy and zona shedding on implantation, the presence of antibodies impairing such functions could result in infertility.…”