Evaluation of mono- and polyclonal antibody-based antigen detection immunoassays for diagnosis of Trypanosoma evansi infection in the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius)

Abstract

Two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), one based on a mouse anti-Trypanosoma brucei group-specific monoclonal antibody and the other on rabbit anti-Trypanosoma evansi polyclonal antibodies, have been evaluated for their ability to detect circulating trypanosome antigens in camel sera as a means for the diagnosis of T. evansi infections. All 91 sera from a negative control camel herd from Kenya gave negative antigen-ELISA results in the monoclonal antibody-based ELISA and only 2 of them (2.2 %) gave false positive results in the polyclonal antibody-based ELISA. In subsequent analyses of sera from infected camels (as determined by mouse inoculation), the monoclonal antibody-based ELISA detected antigens in 90 (83.3 %) out of the 108 sera tested. This percentage was lower for the polyclonal antibody-based ELISA which was able to detect antigens in 67 (60.9 %) out of the 110 sera tested. The two tests detected probably different antigens and when the results were combined, 99 out of 107 (92.5 %) sera were shown to be ELISA positive. In a survey involving 316 camels from the Gao and Nara areas, in Mali, a high proportion of animals tested were antigen positive (43.5 and 42.9 %, respectively for the mono- and polyclonal antibody-based ELISA) compared to only 22 (7.0 %) diagnosed by the parasite detection techniques. Thus, these immunoassays were at least six times more sensitive than the haematocrit centrifugation technique. As a large proportion of cases may be antigen positive but parasite negative, these two of “surra” immunoassays should be used in routine diagnosis in addition to the parasite detection techniques in the dromedary camel.