RT Journal Article
T1 Evolution of specific antibodies and proviral DNA in milk of small ruminants infected by small ruminant lentivirus
A1 Barquero, Nuria
A1 Gómez-Lucía Duato, María Esperanza
A1 Arjona, Alvaro
A1 Toural, Cristina
A1 Heras, Alfonso las
A1 Domenech, Ana
A1 Fernández-Garayzábal Fernández, José Francisco
AB The diagnosis of Small Ruminant Lentivirus (SRLV) is based on clinical signs, pathological lesions and laboratory testing. No standard reference test for the diagnosis of maedi visna has been validated up to the present, and it is puzzling that tests which detect antibodies against the virus and tests which detect the proviral genome may render opposite results. The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence in milk throughout a lactation period of specific antibodies by ELISA and of SRLV proviral DNA by a PCR of the highly conserved pol region. A six-month study was conducted with the milk of 28 ewes and 31 goats intensively reared. The percentage of animals with antibodies against SRLV increased throughout the study period. Seroprevalence in sheep was 28% at the beginning of the study and by the end it had increased up to 52.4%. In goats, initial seroprevalence of 5.6% increased to 16%. The percentage of PCR positive ewes was stable throughout the study period. Of the positive sheep, 21.4% were PCR-positive before antibodies could be detected and most of them became PCR-negative shortly after the first detection of antibodies. This might suggest that antibodies have a neutralizing effect. In addition, an equal percentage of sheep were always PCR-negative but either became ELISA-positive or was always ELISA-positive, which might support this hypothesis. On the other hand, the PCR results in goats did not follow any pattern and oscillated between 35.3% and 55.6% depending on the month. Most goats positive by PCR failed to develop antibodies in the 6 months tested. We may conclude that the infection and the antibody response to it follow a different trend in sheep and goats.
PB MDPI
SN 1999-4915
YR 2013
FD 2013-10-22
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/35285
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/35285
LA eng
NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
NO UCM-Santander GR58/08
DS Docta Complutense
RD 2 may 2024