Detection of specific antigens of Newcastle disease virus using an absorbed Western blotting method

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is an economically important poultry pathogen with a worldwide distribution that may infect a wide range of domestic and wild avian species. The identification of different pathotypes of NDVs plays an important role in the diagnosis and development of vaccines to control and eradicate NDV infections. In our previous study, we showed that mono-specific antibodies can differentiate velogenic and lentogenic strains of NDV in Agar Gel Immuno-Diffusion tests. To evaluate the ability of the specific antibodies to detect NDV specific antigens, this study was conducted with a range of NDV isolates. The samples included 9 NDV neuropathogenic/velogenic isolates from diseased chickens collected from poultry farms in central and northern parts of Iran plus La-Sota and B1 vaccine strains. All samples were propagated in embryonated chicken eggs and concentrated and purified by ultra-centrifugation. All samples were subjected to 12.5% SDS-PAGE and Western blotting using the specific antibodies mentioned previously. In SDS-PAGE all velogenic and vaccine strains showed the same electrophoretic pattern. The detected bands included 15, 38, 46, 48, 53, 55, 68, 74 and 220 kDa proteins. In Western blotting analysis, the mono-specific antibodies reacted specifically to the viral proteins with 15, 38, 48, 55, 74 and 220 kDa and non-specifically to the viral protein with 53 kDa. The results suggest that specific anti-NDV antibodies can react specifically to glycoproteins (haemagglutin-neuraminidase and fusion proteins) but not to internal proteins (nucleoprotein or matrix protein) of NDV strains.