Standardisation of ELISA for rheumatoid factor IgM detection in canine serum.

摘要

Rheumatoid factor (RF) is an important marker of many autoimmune diseases. The presence of RF is a characteristic for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases of various underlying aetiologies. The aim of the study was to introduce and standardize a convenient assay for RF-IgM detection in canine serum and to test it on a group of selected dogs. ELISA was chosen as a method of analysis due to its high specificity, selectivity and optimal quality in clinical use. For the standardized method of evaluation, serum samples from 80 dogs classified into 4 groups were examined as follows: I, dogs positive in the ANA test (ANA+) suffering from orthopaedic or complex diseases; II, dogs negative in the ANA test (ANA-) suffering from orthopaedic or complex diseases; III, dogs negative in the ANA test (ANA-) suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases; and IV, control healthy dogs. There were significant differences among the mean values of RF-IgM of the different groups. Dogs from groups I and II showed the highest mean values. These were significantly higher than the values of dogs from groups III and IV, and the differences between the last mentioned two groups were also significant. It is suggested that the introduced method is suitable for use in the veterinary laboratory practice.