Although many pharmaceutically useful proteins are produced in E. coli expression system, it is very are rare for the system to be used in the production of diagnostic antigen due to a major problem, i.e., false-positive reaction of e. coli host-derived proteins contaminating purified diagnostic antigen with human sera. The N (nucleocapsid) protein of Seoul virus causing haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) was produced in E. coli BL21 (DE3), and used for the detection of N protein-specific antibodies in human sera. Using the N protein as a diagnostic antigen of HFRS, the false-positive reaction was cleared by merely mixing the test sera with the extract of E. coli host strain not harboring expression plasmid.