AUTHOR=Augustine Swinburne A. J. , Simmons Kaneatra J. , Eason Tarsha N. , Curioso Clarissa L. , Griffin Shannon M. , Wade Timothy J. , Dufour Alfred , Fout G. Shay , Grimm Ann C. , Oshima Kevin H. , Sams Elizabeth A. , See Mary Jean , Wymer Larry J. TITLE=Immunoprevalence to Six Waterborne Pathogens in Beachgoers at Boquerón Beach, Puerto Rico: Application of a Microsphere-Based Salivary Antibody Multiplex Immunoassay JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=5 YEAR=2017 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2017.00084 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2017.00084 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=

Waterborne infectious diseases are a major public health concern worldwide. Few methods have been established that are capable of measuring human exposure to multiple waterborne pathogens simultaneously using non-invasive samples such as saliva. Most current methods measure exposure to only one pathogen at a time, require large volumes of individual samples collected using invasive procedures, and are very labor intensive. In this article, we applied a multiplex bead-based immunoassay capable of measuring IgG antibody responses to six waterborne pathogens simultaneously in human saliva to estimate immunoprevalence in beachgoers at Boquerón Beach, Puerto Rico. Further, we present approaches for determining cutoff points to assess immunoprevalence to the pathogens in the assay. For the six pathogens studied, our results show that IgG antibodies against antigens from noroviruses GI.I and GII.4 were more prevalent (60 and 51.6%, respectively) than Helicobacter pylori (21.4%), hepatitis A virus (20.2%), Campylobacter jejuni (8.7%), and Toxoplasma gondii (8%) in the saliva of the study participants. The salivary antibody multiplex immunoassay can be used to examine immunoprevalence of specific pathogens in human populations.