Indirect fluorescent antibody test for experimental and epizootiological studies on East coast fever (Theileria parva infection in cattle). Evaluation of a cell culture schizont antigen fixed and stored in suspension.

A schizont antigen for the indirect fluorescent antibody test against Theileria parva was prepared from a T parva-infected bovine lymphoblastoid cell line by fixing the cells in suspension with a mixture of acetone and formaldehyde. The antigen was stored in suspension in phosphate buffered saline for one and a half years at -60 degrees C without loss of activity; the antigen could also be lyophilised. The fluorescence of the intracellular schizonts was bright and specific with T parva positive bovine control serum and absent with negative bovine control serum and Theileria mutans positive bovine control serum. Fluorescence of the lymphoblastoid cell itself was observed with Trypanosoma brucei positive control serum and some bovine test sera: this fluorescence, which masked the intracellular schizonts, was eliminated by absorbing the sera in the supernatant of sonicated lymphocytes obtained from bovine lymph nodes. The antigen was evaluated with sera from cattle experimentally infected with T parva. In an epizootiological study on East Coast fever in the Coast Province of Kenya, there was good correlation between the serological responses of cattle to T parva schizont antigen and the distribution of Rhipicephalus appendiculatus ticks.