Anti-dextran antibodies of carp detected by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Carp produce anti-alpha (1-6) dextran antibodies after immunization with a vaccine of Leuconostoc mesenteroides B512. These antibodies can be determined by passive haemagglutination, quantitative precipitation or by ELISA. In our hands the ELISA has proved to be 100 times more sensitive than the passive haemagglutination test. We could not found any correlation between the anti-dextran activity estimated with the passive haemagglutination on the one and the ELISA on the other hand.