VALIDATION OF A MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY-BASED ELISA TO DETECT ANTIBODIES DIRECTED AGAINST SWINE VESICULAR DISEASE VIRUS

A simple, rapid and sensitive competitive monoclonal antibody-based EL ISA for the detection of antibodies directed against swine vesicular d isease virus (SVDV) was developed. The ELISA was validated using field sera originating from SVDV-infected and non-infected Dutch pig herds, reference sera obtained from the Community Reference Laboratory for S wine Vesicular Disease at the Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright L aboratory, UK, and sera from animals infected experimentally. When tes ting 4277 sera originating from non-infected Dutch pig herds and colle cted as part of the national screening program, this ELISA had only 0. 6% false positive results, whereas approximate to 2% of false positive results were obtained with a conventional blocking ELISA used until r ecently. A sensitivity relative to the virus neutralisation test of > 97% was achieved when testing sera collected from Dutch pig farms when an outbreak of SVDV had occurred. All international reference sera sc ored consistently correct. Sera collected sequentially from pigs exper imentally infected with SVDV isolates representing all currently recog nized antigenic groups, were scored positive slightly earlier by the E LISA compared to the virus neutralisation test. This monoclonal antibo dy-based competitive ELISA for SVDV antibodies designated the Ceditest ELISA for SVDV-Ab, is as sensitive but more specific than the ELISA u sed until recently. Because sera are tested at a single dilution (1:5) , incubations are carried out at room temperature and test results are available within 3 h, this ELISA is simple, easy to automate and ther efore very suitable for screening large numbers of serum samples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.