Precolostral serology in calves born from Neospora-seropositive mothers

Abstract

The present study was designed to exploratively determine (a) how many healthy calves, born from seropositive mothers, were also precolostrally seropositive; (b) how many precolostrally negative calves became postcolostrally positive; and (c) in these calves, how the IgG1/IgG2 situation developed pre- and postcolostrally. All calves were born from mothers that were determined to be seropositive in a conventional Neospora caninum-ELISA and by immunoblotting. When the diagnostic performance of the conventional ELISA was compared with that of immunoblotting and an IgG1/IgG2-ELISA in the calves, the latter two exhibited a higher sensitivity: From a total of 15 precolostral calf sera, 7 were positive in the conventional ELISA (diagnostic sensitivity 47%) compared to 15 that were positive by immunoblotting (diagnostic sensitivity 100%) and 12 that were positive by the IgG1/IgG2-ELISA (diagnostic sensitivity 80%). With regard to IgG1/IgG2 findings in the dams, IgG2 appeared as the dominant subclass in the humoral immune response of adult cattle, while in calves, IgG1 appeared as the main prenatally/precolostrally reactive antibody isotype. Provided that precolostral seropositivity reflects postnatal persistent infection with N. caninum, we then postulate that, basically, all of our study calves born form N. caninum-seropositive mothers were prenatally infected with the parasite, and may, thus, all become members of the next transmitting generation.