title: Identification of blood meals in Aedes aegypti by antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
abstract: A comparative study of 3 ELISA protocols was performed for host blood meal identification in Aedes aegypti. In the sandwich-B ELISA, which used a combination of heavy and heavy+light chain conjugates, specificity was improved to such a degree that conjugates no longer required cross-adsorption with heterologous sera. Using the sandwich-B assay, human blood meals in laboratory reared Ae. aegypti could be detected longer after feeding (100% at 32 h and 80% at 42 h) than with a direct assay (100% at 20 h). Efficacy of the sandwich-B and direct ELISAs in field analyses was studied in parallel) using 80 field collected mosquitoes from Thailand. The sandwich-B assay was superior (88% detection rate) to the direct assay (41% detection rate) and was thus selected as the method of choice for future field studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park 20742.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Wirtz
authors.forename: T W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D000330:Aedes / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D002417:Cattle; D002645:Chickens / Q000097:blood; D004285:Dogs; D004372:Ducks / Q000097:blood; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006736:Horses / Q000097:blood; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood*; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000097:blood*; D051379:Mice; D051381:Rats; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013045:Species Specificity; D013552:Swine / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007075:Immunoglobulin M