Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
New test for Mycoplasma bovis infection in cattle
By Wawegama, Nadeeka K et al.·Published in Clinical and vaccine immunology : CVI·2014·Faculty of Veterinary Science, Australia·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Development of a recombinant protein-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for diagnosis of Mycoplasma bovis infection in cattle.
Plain-English summary
Mycoplasma bovis is a germ that can make cattle sick, causing issues like mastitis (inflammation of the udder), arthritis, and pneumonia. Researchers have been working on a better way to diagnose infections caused by this germ, which can be tricky. They found a specific protein, called mycoplasma immunogenic lipase A (MilA), that shows up in the blood of calves infected with M. bovis. Using this protein, they created two tests: one that can detect an early immune response (IgM) two weeks after infection and another that can find a later immune response (IgG) three weeks after infection. The IgG test showed very high accuracy, making it a promising option for diagnosing M. bovis infections in cattle.
Abstract
Mycoplasma bovis causes a range of diseases in cattle, including mastitis, arthritis, and pneumonia. However, accurate serological diagnosis of infection remains problematic. The studies described here aimed to identify an antigen that might be used to develop a more specific and sensitive diagnostic assay. A 226-kDa immunogenic protein was consistently detected in Western blots by antibodies in sera from calves experimentally infected with M. bovis. This protein was shown to be a membrane protein with lipase activity and was named mycoplasma immunogenic lipase A (MilA). Different regions of MilA were expressed in Escherichia coli as glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins and recombinant products from the amino-terminal end shown to have strong immunoreactivity with M. bovis-specific bovine sera. The most immunoreactive fusion protein, GST-MilA-ab, was used to develop indirect IgM and IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). The IgM ELISA detected M. bovis-specific IgM antibody 2 weeks after infection with 97.1% sensitivity and had a specificity of 63.3%, while the IgG ELISA detected M. bovis-specific IgG 3 weeks after infection with 92.86% sensitivity and had a specificity of 98.7%, demonstrating that the IgG ELISA has potential for use as a sensitive and specific assay for detecting infection in cattle.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24334686/