Evaluation of Two New Membrane-Based and Microtiter Plate Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays for Detection of Campylobacter jejuni in Stools of Bangladeshi Children

Two new monoclonal antibody-based, sandwich enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) for fecal antigen detection of Campylobacter jejuni or Campylobacter coli were evaluated using diarrheal stool specimens from a cohort of children in Bangladesh. These children routinely harbor multiple enteric pathogens, often at levels that make it difficult to assign diarrheal symptoms to a causative agent. A panel of 158 PCR-positive specimens with a broad range of C. jejuni/C. coli DNA cycle threshold (C(T)) values was used to assess the ability of the two tests to detect C. jejuni/C. coli antigen amounts that varied widely. A panel of 100 C. jejuni/C. coli PCR-negative specimens was used to verify that the assays correctly identified specimens as negative when the sample contained other enteric pathogens. Further analysis was conducted on a subset of 46 specimens that contained particularly substantial amounts of C. jejuni/C. coli (C(T) of ≤19.7) that previous studies have ascribed as “diarrhea-associated.” The Quik Chek rapid EIA and the Chek enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) had a sensitivity of 95.7% for these specimens (specificities, 97% and 96%, respectively), supporting the usefulness of the new Chek and Quik Chek assays in symptomatic presentations, where Campylobacter is the likely etiology.