Study of antigenic heterogeneity among Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae serotype 7 strains

Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae serotype 7 strains were studied for their antigenic heterogeneity using rabbit polyclonal hyperimmune sera against all the known twelve reference strains of A. pleuropneumoniae and a battery of different serological tests such as coagglutination (COA), immunodiffusion (ID), indirect hemagglutination (IHA), counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIE), rapid dot-ELISA (RDE), serum soft-agar (SSA) and growth agglutination (GA). Reference serotype 7 strain (WF83) showed cross-reactivity with reference serotype 1B strain but not with other serotypes. Field serotype 7 strains showed cross-reactivities with serotypes 1A, 1B, 4, 9, 10, and 11 in COA, ID, and CIE tests, but not in IHA test. Two field strains of serotype 7 (90-3182 and 86-1411) which appeared to be different from the typical serotype 7 strains were selected for further antigenic characterization by SDS-PAGE, Western blot, and Tricine SDS-PAGE assays, and identified as serotypes 1 and 7, respectively. For serotyping atypical strains, it is suggested to use Western blot assay as a confirmatory test to identify serotype-specific capsular and somatic antigens.