1. Analytical evaluation of an immunomagnetic separation PCR assay to detect pathogenic Leptospira in cattle urine samples obtained under field conditions.
- Author
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Tomckowiack C, Henriquez C, Ramirez-Reveco A, Muñoz P, Collado B, Herzberg D, Folch H, and Salgado M
- Subjects
- Animals, Cattle, Cattle Diseases urine, Chile, Dairying, Female, Immunomagnetic Separation veterinary, Leptospira genetics, Leptospira immunology, Leptospirosis diagnosis, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction veterinary, Sensitivity and Specificity, Urinalysis veterinary, Animal Husbandry, Cattle Diseases diagnosis, Leptospira isolation & purification, Leptospirosis veterinary
- Abstract
Clinical manifestations of leptospirosis are diverse and very similar to other febrile diseases, hence early and accurate detection of subclinical infections is a key element in disease control. We evaluated immunomagnetic separation (IMS) capture technology coupled with a standard quantitative PCR (qPCR) system for the detection of pathogenic Leptospira in urine samples from 803 cows from dairy herds with a history of clinical cases of leptospirosis. The urine samples were first processed in a purification step, then subdivided into 2 subsamples, one that continued to DNA extraction and direct qPCR, and one that was pretreated by IMS before continuing to DNA extraction and qPCR. Overall, 133 of 803 (16.6%) samples were IMS-qPCR positive, whereas only 92 of 803 (11.5%) were positive when using direct qPCR. Statistically significant differences were observed between the mean estimated Leptospira load between the IMS-qPCR and the direct qPCR positive urine samples. The IMS-qPCR technology revealed a larger number of positive results and higher bacterial loads than direct qPCR. This difference is most likely the result of the high antigen-binding capacity and capture efficiency of the IMS system. The use of polyclonal antibodies produced by the inoculation of 3 synthetic peptides, which make up the extracellular regions of the LipL32 protein, provided a high detection capacity to the IMS-qPCR technique, resulting in performance superior to direct qPCR.
- Published
- 2021
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