{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,2]],"date-time":"2026-11-02T18:42:20Z","timestamp":1793644940055,"version":"4.5.1"},"reference-count":15,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,28]],"date-time":"2023-02-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1677542400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100010767","name":"Innovative Medicines Initiative","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["115672"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["115672"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100010767","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Immunol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>External Quality Assessment (EQA) schemes are designed to provide a snapshot of laboratory proficiency, identifying issues and providing feedback to improve laboratory performance and inter-laboratory agreement in testing. Currently there are no international EQA schemes for seasonal influenza serology testing. Here we present a feasibility study for conducting an EQA scheme for influenza serology methods.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>We invited participant laboratories from industry, contract research organizations (CROs), academia and public health institutions who regularly conduct hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) and microneutralization (MN) assays and have an interest in serology standardization. In total 16 laboratories returned data including 19 data sets for HAI assays and 9 data sets for MN assays.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Within run analysis demonstrated good laboratory performance for HAI, with intrinsically higher levels of intra-assay variation for MN assays. Between run analysis showed laboratory and strain specific issues, particularly with B strains for HAI, whilst MN testing was consistently good across labs and strains. Inter-laboratory variability was higher for MN assays than HAI, however both assays showed a significant reduction in inter-laboratory variation when a human sera pool is used as a standard for normalization.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study has received positive feedback from participants, highlighting the benefit such an EQA scheme would have on improving laboratory performance, reducing inter laboratory variation and raising awareness of both harmonized protocol use and the benefit of biological standards for seasonal influenza serology testing.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1129765","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,6]],"date-time":"2023-03-06T16:53:19Z","timestamp":1678121599000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["An external quality assessment feasibility study; cross laboratory comparison of haemagglutination inhibition assay and microneutralization assay performance for seasonal influenza serology testing: A FLUCOP study"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Joanna","family":"Waldock","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carol D.","family":"Weiss","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Min Z.","family":"Levine","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Stacie N.","family":"Jefferson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sammy","family":"Ho","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Katja","family":"Hoschler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Brandon Z.","family":"Londt","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Elisa","family":"Masat","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Louise","family":"Carolan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Stephany","family":"S\u00e1nchez-Ovando","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Annette","family":"Fox","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shinji","family":"Watanabe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Miki","family":"Akimoto","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aya","family":"Sato","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Noriko","family":"Kishida","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Amelia","family":"Buys","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lorens","family":"Maake","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cardia","family":"Fourie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Catherine","family":"Caillet","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sandrine","family":"Raynaud","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Richard J.","family":"Webby","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jennifer","family":"DeBeauchamp","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rebecca J.","family":"Cox","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sarah L.","family":"Lartey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Claudia M.","family":"Trombetta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Serena","family":"Marchi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Emanuele","family":"Montomoli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Iv\u00e1n","family":"Sanz-Mu\u00f1oz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda","family":"Eiros","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Javier","family":"S\u00e1nchez-Mart\u00ednez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Danny","family":"Duijsings","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Othmar G.","family":"Engelhardt","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","volume-title":"European External influenza virus quality assessment programme \u2013 2020 data","year":"2022"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/mSphere.00567-21","article-title":"Assay harmonization and use of biological standards to improve the reproducibility of the hemagglutination inhibition assay: A flucop collaborative study","volume":"6","author":"Waldock","year":"2021","journal-title":"mSphere"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3389\/fimmu.2022.909297","article-title":"Validation of a harmonized enzyme-Linked-Lectin-Assay (Ella-Ni) based neuraminidase inhibition assay standard operating procedure (Sop) for quantification of N1 influenza antibodies and the use of a calibrator to improve the reproducibility of the Ella-Ni with reverse genetics viral and recombinant neuraminidase antigens: A flucop collaborative study","volume":"13","author":"Bernard","year":"2022","journal-title":"Front Immunol"},{"key":"B4","unstructured":"Serological diagnosis of influenza by microneutralization assay world health organisation2010"},{"key":"B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"49","DOI":"10.11613\/bm.2017.007","article-title":"Interpretation of eqa results and eqa-based trouble shooting","volume":"27","author":"Kristensen","year":"2017","journal-title":"Biochemia Med"},{"key":"B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2018.10.087","article-title":"Establishment of the first who international standard for antiserum to respiratory syncytial virus: Report of an international collaborative study","volume":"36","author":"McDonald","year":"2018","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"B7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.0708363104","article-title":"Structural basis for receptor specificity of influenza b virus hemagglutinin","volume":"104","author":"Wang","year":"2007","journal-title":"Proc Natl Acad Sci United States America"},{"key":"B8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/jmr.2293","article-title":"The specificity of the influenza b virus hemagglutinin receptor binding pocket: What does it bind to","volume":"26","author":"Velkov","year":"2013","journal-title":"J Mol recognition JMR"},{"key":"B9","article-title":"Molecular characterization of the receptor binding structure-activity relationships of influenza b virus hemagglutinin","volume":"57","author":"Carbone","year":"2013","journal-title":"Acta virologica"},{"key":"B10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3201\/eid1508.081754","article-title":"Reproducibility of serologic assays for influenza virus a (H5n1)","volume":"15","author":"Stephenson","year":"2009","journal-title":"Emerging Infect Dis"},{"key":"B11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2012.02.077","article-title":"Enhancing the reproducibility of serological methods used to evaluate immunogenicity of pandemic H1n1 influenza vaccines\u2013an effective eu regulatory approach","volume":"30","author":"Wagner","year":"2012","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"B12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0264-410x(94)90056-6","article-title":"Comparison of influenza serological techniques by international collaborative study","volume":"12","author":"Wood","year":"1994","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"B13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2011.11.019","article-title":"Reproducibility of serology assays for pandemic influenza H1n1: Collaborative study to evaluate a candidate who international standard","volume":"30","author":"Wood","year":"2012","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"B14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2007.02.039","article-title":"Comparison of neutralising antibody assays for detection of antibody to influenza a\/H3n2 viruses: An international collaborative study","volume":"25","author":"Stephenson","year":"2007","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"B15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/cvi.00613-15","article-title":"Standardization of hemagglutination inhibition assay for influenza serology allows for high reproducibility between laboratories","volume":"23","author":"Zacour","year":"2016","journal-title":"Clin Vaccine Immunol CVI"}],"container-title":["Frontiers in Immunology"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1129765\/full","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,6]],"date-time":"2023-03-06T16:53:23Z","timestamp":1678121603000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1129765\/full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,28]]},"references-count":15,"alternative-id":["10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1129765"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1129765","relation":{},"ISSN":["1664-3224"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1664-3224","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,28]]},"article-number":"1129765"}}