TITLE:
Detection of Antibodies in Serum Specimens from Dogs with Blastomycosis with Lysate Antigens Prepared from Four Blastomyces dermatitidis Dog Isolates: Individual Antigens vs Antigen Combinations
AUTHORS:
Jamie L. VanDyke, Alex Boyd, Jesse Sorensen, Tylor Hine, Christina Rayner, Angel Zamora, Gene M. Scalarone
KEYWORDS:
Blastomycosis; Lysate Antigen Combinations; Antibody Detection; ELISA
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Veterinary Medicine,
Vol.3 No.4,
August
12,
2013
ABSTRACT: Blastomycosis, the systemic fungal
infection of humans and animals, has presented a diagnostic challenge to clinicians
and laboratory personnel for many years. Our laboratory has been concentrating
on attempting to develop antigenic reagents from the yeast phase of various
isolates of Blastomyces dermatitidis and to evaluate these lysate antigens with regard to antibody detection in
blastomycosis. The aim of this current study was to evaluate yeast phase
antigens prepared from four dog isolates of B.
dermatitidis and to evaluate their efficacy, when used individually or in
combination, for antibody detection in sera from dogs with blastomycosis. Mean
absorbance values using the ELISA to assay 24 serum specimens (Trial 1) ranged
from 0.588 with an individual lysate antigen to 0.992 when three reagents were
combined. Eight of the lysates exhibited mean absorbance values ranging from
0.992 to 0.915 with 7 out of 8 being lysate antigen combinations. Mean
absorbance values with the other 6 lysates ranged from 0.899 to 0.588. In Trial
2, the 6 most sensitive reagents from Trial 1 were assayed against 10 highly
reactive dog sera. The results of Trial 2 showed that 5 antigen combinations
detected antibody to a greater degree than the individual lysate antigen.
Combinations of northern and southern antigens were able to detect antibody in
serum specimens from either of these geographical regions. Comparative studies
are continuing to further evaluate various lysate antigen combinations for
antibody detection in blastomycosis.