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Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus is an emerging pathogen that causes severe infections in humans. Infection risk areas are mostly defined based on the incidence of human cases, a method which does not work well in areas with sporadic TBE cases. Thus, sentinel animals may help to better estimate t...

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Autores principales: Girl, Philipp, Haut, Maja, Riederer, Sandra, Pfeffer, Martin, Dobler, Gerhard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7919048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33671962
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9020399
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author Girl, Philipp
Haut, Maja
Riederer, Sandra
Pfeffer, Martin
Dobler, Gerhard
author_facet Girl, Philipp
Haut, Maja
Riederer, Sandra
Pfeffer, Martin
Dobler, Gerhard
author_sort Girl, Philipp
collection PubMed
description Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus is an emerging pathogen that causes severe infections in humans. Infection risk areas are mostly defined based on the incidence of human cases, a method which does not work well in areas with sporadic TBE cases. Thus, sentinel animals may help to better estimate the existing risk. Serological tests should be thoroughly evaluated for this purpose. Here, we tested three test formats to assess the use of dogs as sentinel animals. A total of 208 dog sera from a known endemic area in Southern Germany were tested in an All-Species-ELISA and indirect immunofluorescence assays (IIFA), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Sensitivity and specificity for both were determined in comparison to the micro-neutralization test (NT) results. Of all 208 samples, 22.1% tested positive in the micro-NT. A total of 18.3% of the samples showed characteristic fluorescence in the IIFA and were, thus, judged positive. In comparison to the micro-NT, a sensitivity of 78.3% and a specificity of 98.8% was obtained. In the ELISA, 19.2% of samples tested positive, with a sensitivity of 84.8% and a specificity of 99.4%. The ELISA is a highly specific test for TBE-antibody detection in dogs and should be well suited for acute diagnostics. However, due to deficits in sensitivity, it cannot replace the NT, at least for epidemiological studies. With even lower specificity and sensitivity, the same applies to IIFA.
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spelling pubmed-79190482021-03-02 Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs Girl, Philipp Haut, Maja Riederer, Sandra Pfeffer, Martin Dobler, Gerhard Microorganisms Communication Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus is an emerging pathogen that causes severe infections in humans. Infection risk areas are mostly defined based on the incidence of human cases, a method which does not work well in areas with sporadic TBE cases. Thus, sentinel animals may help to better estimate the existing risk. Serological tests should be thoroughly evaluated for this purpose. Here, we tested three test formats to assess the use of dogs as sentinel animals. A total of 208 dog sera from a known endemic area in Southern Germany were tested in an All-Species-ELISA and indirect immunofluorescence assays (IIFA), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Sensitivity and specificity for both were determined in comparison to the micro-neutralization test (NT) results. Of all 208 samples, 22.1% tested positive in the micro-NT. A total of 18.3% of the samples showed characteristic fluorescence in the IIFA and were, thus, judged positive. In comparison to the micro-NT, a sensitivity of 78.3% and a specificity of 98.8% was obtained. In the ELISA, 19.2% of samples tested positive, with a sensitivity of 84.8% and a specificity of 99.4%. The ELISA is a highly specific test for TBE-antibody detection in dogs and should be well suited for acute diagnostics. However, due to deficits in sensitivity, it cannot replace the NT, at least for epidemiological studies. With even lower specificity and sensitivity, the same applies to IIFA. MDPI 2021-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7919048/ /pubmed/33671962 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9020399 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Girl, Philipp
Haut, Maja
Riederer, Sandra
Pfeffer, Martin
Dobler, Gerhard
Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title_full Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title_fullStr Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title_full_unstemmed Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title_short Comparison of Three Serological Methods for the Epidemiological Investigation of TBE in Dogs
title_sort comparison of three serological methods for the epidemiological investigation of tbe in dogs
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7919048/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33671962
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9020399
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