Comparative Evaluation of Native Antigens for the Development of Brucellosis Antibody Detection System

Brucellosis is a highly infectious zoonotic disease and an economically important infection of humans and livestock with a worldwide distribution. The main mode of transmission of this disease to humans is through the consumption of infected milk, milk products, and uncooked or raw meat. The present study was designed to prepare few native antigens, that is, sonicated antigen (SA), cell envelope (CE) antigen, and freeze and thaw (FT) antigen from Brucella abortus S99 culture and to test them in a highly sensitive and specific indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (I-ELISA) in both a microtiter plate and a dot-blot format for the development of field-based diagnosis. All 50 suspected bovine samples were tested by plate as well as in dot ELISA formats for all the three antigens prepared. The CE antigen was found to be more suitable as it had the maximum agreement with the Rose Bengal plate agglutination test results followed by the SA and the least agreement was found with that of the FT antigen. This detection system in microtiter plates and a dot-blot format will be useful for the rapid screening of samples for the disease surveillance and routine diagnosis.