Evaluation of two commercial human adenovirus typing kits in children with acute respiratory tract infection.

The performances of two commercial human adenoviruses (HAdVs) typing kits were evaluated in pediatric patients with acute respiratory tract infections (ARIs). Respiratory specimens were collected from March to December 2023 for HAdV screening by a multiple real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction kit (M-qPCR). Using sequence-based HAdV typing as the reference method, the performances of one capillary electrophoresis-based multiplex PCR (CEMP) typing kit (HEALTH) for 12 types of HAdVs and one qPCR typing kit (Uninovo) for 7 types of HAdVs were evaluated. Among 267 specimens positive for HAdVs determined by M-qPCR, there were 215 (80.5%, 215/267) in sequence-based HAdV typing, 216 (80.9%, 216/267) in HAdV-CEMP (HEALTH) and 125 (46.8%, 125/267) in HAdV-qPCR (Uninovo) positive for HAdVs. Though both kits showed strong agreements in HAdV-B3 typing with Kappa value > 0.95, the emerging recombinant P7H3F3 was misidentified as B3 or negative by two kits. Most specimens with high cycle threshold (Ct) value identified as HAdV-C2 and HAdV-C5 by HAdV-CEMP (HEALTH) showed negative typing results in sequence-based HAdV typing. Meanwhile, the recombinants of HAdV-C89 [Px2/H2/F2], HAdV-C108 [Px1ps1/H2/F2], Px1ps3H5F5, and Px2H5F5 identified by sequence-based HAdV typing were misidentified as HAdV-C2 and HAdV-C5 by HAdV-CEMP (HEALTH). In conclusion, the HAdV-CEMP (HEALTH) offered a broad spectrum of HAdVs species and high sensitivity in the detection of species C, and the HAdV-qPCR (Uninovo) provided reliable results for the detection of HAdV-B3. Both of them cannot identify recombinant events.