Comparison Of Four Anti-Avian IgY Secondary Antibodies Used In Western Blot And Dot-Blot ELISA To Detect Avian Bornavirus Antibodies In Four Different Bird Species

Escandon, Paulina; Heatley, J Jill; Berghman, Luc R; Tizard, Ian; Musser, Jeffrey MB

Western blot and immunofluorescence assays are considered gold standards in serologic testing for ABV. N-protein is the immunodominant antigen, 9,27 thus a recombinant N-protein was utilized as the antigen of interest in our assays. The use of the Western blot in our study was two-fold: 1) to verify the seropositive/seronegative status of the plasma samples and 2) to evaluate the use of the different secondary antibodies as compared to the dot-blot ELISA. Anti-macaw and anti-bird IgY secondary antibodies produced strong reactions at 38-41 kDa, but additional bands were seen at 17, 27, and 30 kDa. These bands likely represent degraded N-protein to which the secondary antibodies were able to bind.