Neospora caninum immunoblotting improves serodiagnosis of bovine neosporosis

Staubli, Daniela; Nunez, Sandra; Sager, Heinz; Schares, Gereon; Gottstein, Bruno (2006). Neospora caninum immunoblotting improves serodiagnosis of bovine neosporosis. Parasitology research, 99(6), pp. 648-58. Berlin: Springer-Verlag 10.1007/s00436-006-0207-y

[img]
Preview
Text
436_2006_Article_207.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (383kB) | Preview

Neospora caninum ranges among the major causes of infectious abortion in cattle worldwide. The present study was designed to improve the serodiagnostic tools by complementing a conventional ELISA with a highly sensitive and species-specific N. caninum immunoblot. To evaluate this test combination, sera from several groups of cows were tested. The first group, consisting of experimentally infected calves, showed that immunoblot antibody reactivities were detectable 1 to 3 days earlier than those found in ELISA. The first immunodominant bands that appeared were a 29-kDa (NcSAG1) and a 36-kDa (NcSRS2) antigen. Other groups, based upon naturally infected cattle, were used to compare the diagnostic sensitivity of ELISA and immunoblotting. Overall, N. caninum immunoblotting exhibited a higher sensitivity (98%) than ELISA (87%). Conversely, immunoblotting also confirm in two other cases, true transient negativation in some animals. In general, banding patterns and band staining intensity correlated to the semiquantitative ELISA findings. On the other hand, the banding pattern could not be used to discriminate between sera from animals with a recent abortion and those of cows with latent N. caninum infection. We also addressed putative cross-reactions due to infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Sera from animals with a serologically proven T. gondii infection were either clearly negative by Neospora immunoblotting or they yielded a specific immunoblot antibody profile indicating a double infection with N. caninum. Sera from animals with positive findings in both Toxoplasma and Neospora ELISA thus provided dichotomic results in the immunoblot by allowing to confirm or to rule out the specificity of the antibody reaction in Neospora ELISA. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that N. caninum immunoblotting is a very sensitive and specific complementary tool to improve the serology for N. caninum infections in cattle.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Parasitology

UniBE Contributor:

Staubli, Daniela, Nunez, Sandra, Sager, Heinz, Gottstein, Bruno

Subjects:

600 Technology > 630 Agriculture

ISSN:

0932-0113

Publisher:

Springer-Verlag

Language:

English

Submitter:

Factscience Import

Date Deposited:

04 Oct 2013 14:45

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:14

Publisher DOI:

10.1007/s00436-006-0207-y

PubMed ID:

16718512

Web of Science ID:

000240853000004

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.18671

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/18671 (FactScience: 878)

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback