Development and Standardization of Dot – ELISA for Detection of Neospora caninum Antibodies in Cattle and Comparison with Standard Indirect ELISA and Direct Agglutination Test (DAT)

BACKGROUND: Neospora caninum is a protozoan parasite from phylum apicomplexa and an important agent causing abortion in cattle which produce notable economic loss all around the world. METHODS: Dot-Elisa was set up performing checker board procedure and then 178 sera of cattle examined with commercial indirect ELISA and direct agglutination test (DAT) were also evaluated by dot-ELISA afterwards. RESULTS: Kappa statistical analysis revealed that Dot-ELISA has good agreements with ELISA as well as the DAT and also, Mc Nemar’s analyzing showed that this procedure has acceptable ability to discriminate positive results. Relative sensitivity and specificity of Dot-ELISA were respectively 92.63% and 89.16% and 93.4% and 90.8% in comparison with ELISA and DAT. CONCLUSION: Since the dot-ELISA is easy, inexpensive and not needed high experience to interpret the results, it is superior to ELISA and DAT when we aim to screen the cattle on the farm and slaughterhouses or when the laboratory equipment is not available.