A TeGM6-4r antigen-based immunochromatographic test (ICT) for animal trypanosomosis

Animal trypanosomosis is a disease that is distributed worldwide which results in huge economic losses due to reduced animal productivity. Endemic regions are often located in the countryside where laboratory diagnosis is costly or inaccessible. The establishment of simple, effective, and accurate field tests is therefore of great interest to the farming and veterinary sectors. Our study aimed to develop a simple, rapid, and sensitive immunochromatographic test (ICT) for animal trypanosomosis utilizing the recombinant tandem repeat antigen TeGM6-4r, which is conserved amongst salivarian trypanosome species. In the specificity analysis, TeGM6-4r/ICT detected all of Trypanosoma evansi-positive controls from experimentally infected water buffaloes. As expected, uninfected controls tested negative. All sera samples collected from Tanzanian and Ugandan cattle that were Trypanosoma congolense- and/or Trypanosoma vivax-positive by microscopic examination of the buffy coat were found to be positive by the newly developed TeGM6-4r/ICT, which was comparable to results from TeGM6-4r/ELISA (kappa coefficient [κ] = 0.78). TeGM6/ICT also showed substantial agreement with ELISA using Trypanosoma brucei brucei (κ = 0.64) and T. congolense (κ = 0.72) crude antigen, suggesting the high potential of TeGM6-4r/ICT as a field diagnostic test, both for research purposes and on-site diagnosis of animal trypanosomosis.