Expression and immunolocalisation of TpFABP as a candidate antigen for the serodiagnosis of rabbit Taenia pisiformis cysticercosis

The larval stage of Taenia pisiformis, also known as Cysticercus pisiformis, is the causative agent of cysticercosis and the cause of severe health problems in rabbits that negatively impacts on husbandry production. To date, there is no fast detection method to identify early infections in rabbits. In the present study, a new dot-ELISA-based on an endogenous antigen fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) was developed for the detection of cysticercosis, and its potential was then evaluated using test serum samples. Immunolocalisation showed that T. pisiformis FABP (TpFABP) localised to the parenchyma of the bladder wall of the cysticercus and perinuclear cytoplasm of parenchyma of the adult parasite. After cloning and expression, recombinant TpFABP (rTpFABP) protein was used for serodiagnosis of T. pisiformis infection in rabbits by dot-ELISA. The antibody was detected 14 days post-infection in rabbits experimentally infected with T. pisiformis. Based on the necropsy results, the sensitivity and specificity of 169 serum samples tested by rTpFABP dot-ELISA were found to be 98.2% (54/55) and 92.1% (105/114), respectively. These data suggest that the dot-ELISA developed in this study has potential for detection of T. pisiformis infection in rabbits.