Functional Affinity of Eleven Commercial Conjugates for Use in Serologic Assays for Wild Rodents and Shrews.
Series / Report no.
Open Access
Type
Journal Article
Article
Article
Language
en
Date
2025-07-01
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Title
Functional Affinity of Eleven Commercial Conjugates for Use in Serologic Assays for Wild Rodents and Shrews.
Translated Title
Published in
J Wildl Dis 2025:61(3):694-699
Abstract
Serologic assays are important tools for detecting the presence of antibodies that are indicative of past and ongoing infections. For wildlife, species-specific conjugates, which are used as detection antibodies in primary binding assays, are not available for most species. In these cases, conjugates for closely related species or immunoglobulin-binding proteins are frequently used. These are often not validated and their low functional affinity may result in false-negative results. We tested 11 commercial conjugates, including protein G and species- or family-specific secondary conjugated antibodies, on eight rodent and two insectivore species (shrews). Using direct ELISAs, between-species and within-species differences in the functional affinity of the conjugates were assessed. Large differences in antibody binding of the conjugates were observed. Some conjugates were species-specific, binding only to antibodies from one species, whereas others were able to bind across a broad range of species. The strength of the antibody-conjugate interaction varied between species and sometimes within species. In general, stronger antibody-conjugate interactions were observed for rodent species than for shrews. Our study underlines the importance of confirming species-specific functional affinity of a conjugate, even if the conjugate is known to bind to antibodies of a closely related species.