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Published on: May 11, 2020
Development of an ELISA system for tick-borne encephalitis virus infection in rodents
Ayae Ikawa-Yoshida1, Kentaro Yoshii, Kazue Kuwahara
1Laboratory of Public Health, Department of Environmental Veterinary Sciences, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University, Kita 18, Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0818, Japan.
Abstract:
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus causes severe encephalitis with serious sequelae in humans. An epizootiological survey of wild rodents is effective to detect TBE virus-endemic areas; however, limited serological diagnostic methods are available to detect anti-TBE virus antibodies in wild rodents. In this study, ELISAs for the detection of rodent antibodies against the TBE virus were developed using two recombinant proteins, domain III of the E protein (EdIII) and subviral particles (SPs), as the antigens. As compared with the neutralization test, the ELISA using EdIII had 77.1% sensitivity and 80.0% specificity, and the ELISA using SPs had 91.4% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Furthermore, when the ELISAs were applied to the epizootiological survey in the TBE virus-endemic area, both of the ELISAs was able to detect wild rodents with TBE virus-specific antibodies. This is the first study to show that ELISAs using recombinant antigens can be safe and useful in the detection of TBE virus-infected wild rodents in epizootiological research.
