An analytical approach to reduce between-plate variation in multiplex assays that measure antibodies to Plasmodium falciparum antigens

BACKGROUND: Antibodies play an important role in immunity to malaria. Recent studies show that antibodies to multiple antigens, as well as, the overall breadth of the response are associated with protection from malaria. Yet, the variability and reliability of antibody measurements against a combination of malarial antigens using multiplex assays have not been well characterized. METHODS: A normalization procedure for reducing between-plate variation using replicates of pooled positive and negative controls was investigated. Sixty test samples (30 from malaria-positive and 30 malaria-negative individuals), together with five pooled positive-controls and two pooled negative-controls, were screened for antibody levels to 9 malarial antigens, including merozoite antigens (AMA1, EBA175, MSP1, MSP2, MSP3, MSP11, Pf41), sporozoite CSP, and pregnancy-associated VAR2CSA. The antibody levels were measured in triplicate on each of 3 plates, and the experiments were replicated on two different days by the same technician. The performance of the proposed normalization procedure was evaluated with the pooled controls for the test samples on both the linear and natural-log scales. RESULTS: Compared with data on the linear scale, the natural-log transformed data were less skewed and reduced the mean–variance relationship. The proposed normalization procedure using pooled controls on the natural-log scale significantly reduced between-plate variation. CONCLUSIONS: For malaria-related research that measure antibodies to multiple antigens with multiplex assays, the natural-log transformation is recommended for data analysis and use of the normalization procedure with multiple pooled controls can improve the precision of antibody measurements. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12936-017-1933-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.