An Ibero-American inter-laboratory trial to evaluate serological tests for the detection of anti-<i>Neospora caninum</i> antibodies in cattle

• Autores: Campero, Lucía María; Moreno Gonzalo, Javier; Venturini, María Cecilia; Moré, Gastón Andrés; Dellarupe, Andrea; Rambeaud, Magdalena; Echaide, Ignacio E.; Valentini, Beatriz; Campero, Carlos Manuel; Moore, Dadín Prando; Cano, Dora B.; Fort, Marcelo; Mota, Rinaldo A.; Serrano Martínez, Marcos E.; Cruz Vázquez, Carlos; Ortega Mora, Luis M.; Álvarez García, Gema
• Año de publicación: 2017
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Ciencias Veterinarias; Bovine neosporosis; Serological assay trial; Ibero-America
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de La Plata

We carried out an inter-laboratory trial to compare the serological tests commonly used for the detection of specific Neospora caninum antibodies in cattle in Ibero- American countries. A total of eight laboratories participated from the following countries: Argentina (n = 4), Brazil (n = 1), Peru (n = 1), Mexico (n = 1), and Spain (n = 1). A blind panel of well-characterized cattle sera (n = 143) and sera representative of the target population (n = 351) was tested by seven in-house indirect fluorescent antibody tests (IFATs 1–7) and three enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs 1–3; two in-house and one commercial). Diagnostic performance of the serological tests was calculated and compared according to the following criteria: (1) the BPre-test information,^ which uses previous epidemiological and serological data; (2) the BMajority of tests,^ which classifies a serumas positive or negative according to the results obtained by most tests evaluated. Unexpectedly, six tests showed either sensitivity (Se) or specificity (Sp) values lower than 90%. In contrast, the best tests in terms of Se, Sp, and area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were IFAT 1 and optimized ELISA 1 and ELISA 2. We evaluated a high number of IFATs, which are the most widely used tests in Ibero-America. The significant discordances observed among the tests regardless of the criteria employed hinder control programs and urge the use of a common test or with similar performances to either the optimized IFAT 1 and ELISAs 1 and 2.
Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias