Bovine viral diarrhea virus antigen detection across whole cattle hides using two antigen-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays

Bovine viral diarrhea virus is a costly disease of cattle that can be controlled by vaccination, biosecurity, and removal of persistently infected cattle. Development and proficiency testing of assays to identify persistently infected cattle requires substantial quantities of known positive- and negative-sample material. The objective of this study was to determine what sections of bovine skin contained Bovine viral diarrhea virus antigen. Two commercially available antigen-capture enzyme-linked immunoassays were used to test subsamples representing the entire skin of 3 persistently infected calves. Both assays detected Bovine viral diarrhea virus antigen in the samples indicated for use by assay protocol. However, one assay identified all subsamples as positive, while the second assay identified 64.4% of subsamples as positive. These results show that use of samples other than those specified by the assay protocol must be validated for each individual assay. In this study, alternative sample sites and use of the entire hide for proficiency testing would be acceptable for only one of the assays tested.