Validation and evaluation of a commercially available ELISA for the detection of antibodies specific to bovine viral diarrhoea virus (bovine pestivirus).
OBJECTIVE
To compare the performance of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of antibodies specific to bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) with a virus neutralisation test (VNT) and agarose gel immunodiffusion (AGID) test.


METHODS
A total of 125 cattle serum samples were tested by a commercially available ELISA for antibodies specific to BVDV and by a VNT as the reference standard. A comparison between AGID and ELISA for detection of BVDV antibodies was also carried out, using 1182 serum samples from unvaccinated South Australian cattle.


METHODS
Two-graph receiver operating characteristics (TG-ROC) analysis was used to confirm that the manufacturer's recommended cut-off value for the ELISA was appropriate. Two-by-two tables were constructed to analyse the concordance of serological results among the three assays. McNemar tests were used to assess the agreement among serological tests.


CONCLUSIONS
Using the manufacturer's cut-off threshold, supported by TG-ROC analysis, the ELISA's sensitivity and specificity were calculated to be 96.7% and 97.1%, respectively, compared with the VNT. Compared with AGID, ELISA with specific BVDV antibodies may be more sensitive and detect 5.8% more samples than AGID. McNemar test also showed a significant difference (P < 0.001) between AGID and ELISA.
School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, University of Adelaide, Roseworthy, South Australia, Australia.
S R
SR
Lanyon
M L
ML
Anderson
E
E
Bergman
M P
MP
Reichel
D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood*; D001912:Bovine Virus Diarrhea-Mucosal Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002417:Cattle; D001908:Diarrhea Viruses, Bovine Viral / Q000276:immunology*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary*; D005779:Immunodiffusion / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary; D009500:Neutralization Tests / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D000914:Antibodies, Viral