Establishment of an in-house, recombinant nucleocapsid protein-based enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of chicken infectious bronchitis

摘要

Infectious bronchitis (IB) is one of the devastating chicken viral diseases that causes significant financial loses to chicken industry worldwide. In this study, highly purified recombinant nucleocapsid protein (rNP) of IB virus (IBV) was used to develop an in-house enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA) for the detection of IB. The iELISA was optimized to achieve maximum sensitivity and specificity. All tested broiler chicken farms were positive for IBV antibody in a commercial ELISA kit (cELISA) and the optimized iELISA. Thirty three (33) specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens and 20 broiler chickens held in a restricted environment tested negative for IBV antibody in both ELISA. The above results suggest that the iELISA is a sensitive and specific test for the detection of antibody to IBV in chicken flocks.