Recombinant envelope protein (rgp90) ELISA for equine infectious anemia virus provides comparable results to the agar gel immunodiffusion

Abstract

Equine infectious anemia (EIA) is an important viral infection affecting horses worldwide. The course of infection is accompanied generally by three characteristic stages: acute, chronic and inapparent. There is no effective EIA vaccine or treatment, and the control of the disease is based currently on identification of EIAV inapparent carriers by laboratory tests. Recombinant envelope protein (rgp90) was expressed in Escherichia coli and evaluated via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). There was an excellent agreement (95.42%) between the ELISA results using rgp90 and agar gel immunodiffusion test results. AGID is considered the "gold-standard" serologic test for equine infectious anemia (EIA). After 1160 serum samples were tested, the relative sensitivity and specificity of the ELISA were 96.1% and 96.4%, respectively. Moreover, analysis diagnostic accuracy of the ELISA was performed. The ELISA proved robust. Furthermore, good reproducibility was observed for the negative controls and, positive controls for all plates tested.