Laboratory of Public Health, Department of Environmental Veterinary Sciences, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University, Kita 18, Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0818, Japan.
Microbiol Immunol. 2011 Feb;55(2):100-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1348-0421.2010.00296.x.
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus causes severe encephalitis with serious sequelae in humans. An epizootiological survey of wild rodents is effective to detect TBE virus-endemic areas; however, limited serological diagnostic methods are available to detect anti-TBE virus antibodies in wild rodents. In this study, ELISAs for the detection of rodent antibodies against the TBE virus were developed using two recombinant proteins, domain III of the E protein (EdIII) and subviral particles (SPs), as the antigens. As compared with the neutralization test, the ELISA using EdIII had 77.1% sensitivity and 80.0% specificity, and the ELISA using SPs had 91.4% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Furthermore, when the ELISAs were applied to the epizootiological survey in the TBE virus-endemic area, both of the ELISAs was able to detect wild rodents with TBE virus-specific antibodies. This is the first study to show that ELISAs using recombinant antigens can be safe and useful in the detection of TBE virus-infected wild rodents in epizootiological research.
蜱传脑炎（TBE）病毒可导致人类罹患严重脑炎，并伴有严重的后遗症。对野生啮齿动物进行动物流行病学调查有助于发现 TBE 病毒流行地区；然而，目前可用的检测野生啮齿动物体内抗 TBE 病毒抗体的血清学诊断方法十分有限。在这项研究中，我们使用两种重组蛋白，即包膜蛋白（E 蛋白）的结构域 III（EdIII）和亚病毒颗粒（SPs），作为抗原，开发了用于检测 TBE 病毒抗体的 ELISA。与中和试验相比，使用 EdIII 的 ELISA 具有 77.1%的灵敏度和 80.0%的特异性，而使用 SPs 的 ELISA 具有 91.4%的灵敏度和 100%的特异性。此外，当将 ELISA 应用于 TBE 病毒流行地区的动物流行病学调查时，两种 ELISA 均能够检测到具有 TBE 病毒特异性抗体的野生啮齿动物。这是首次证明，使用重组抗原的 ELISA 可安全、有效地用于检测动物流行病学研究中的 TBE 病毒感染的野生啮齿动物。
