Re. Chiles et Wk. Reisen, A new enzyme immunoassay to detect antibodies to arboviruses in the blood of wild birds, J VECT ECOL, 23(2), 1998, pp. 123-135
A new indirect enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was developed to screen wild bird s
era for antibodies against western equine encephalomyelitis (WEE) and St. L
ouis encephalitis (SLE) viruses. The detector antibody was made by immunizi
ng rabbits with serum proteins pooled from single species representatives o
f four bird orders and was conjugated with horseradish peroxidase to allow
visualization with the ABTS substrate in an EIA plate reader set at 405 nm.
The detector antibody recognized a wide range of bird species and was more
accurate, sensitive, and specific than a hemaglutination inhibition test w
hen compared to a plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT). EIA positive
sera frequently could not be confirmed by PRNT; however, practically all s
era positive by PRNT also were positive by EIA. The new EIA has been incorp
orated into our field research program and has been used to economically sc
reen over 10,000 wild bird sera from 124 species for antibodies against WEE
and SLE.