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An Ibero-American inter-laboratory trial to evaluate serological tests for the detection of anti-Neospora caninum antibodies in cattle

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Abstract

We carried out an inter-laboratory trial to compare the serological tests commonly used for the detection of specific Neospora caninum antibodies in cattle in Ibero-American countries. A total of eight laboratories participated from the following countries: Argentina (n = 4), Brazil (n = 1), Peru (n = 1), Mexico (n = 1), and Spain (n = 1). A blind panel of well-characterized cattle sera (n = 143) and sera representative of the target population (n = 351) was tested by seven in-house indirect fluorescent antibody tests (IFATs 1–7) and three enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs 1–3; two in-house and one commercial). Diagnostic performance of the serological tests was calculated and compared according to the following criteria: (1) the “Pre-test information,” which uses previous epidemiological and serological data; (2) the “Majority of tests,” which classifies a serum as positive or negative according to the results obtained by most tests evaluated. Unexpectedly, six tests showed either sensitivity (Se) or specificity (Sp) values lower than 90%. In contrast, the best tests in terms of Se, Sp, and area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were IFAT 1 and optimized ELISA 1 and ELISA 2. We evaluated a high number of IFATs, which are the most widely used tests in Ibero-America. The significant discordances observed among the tests regardless of the criteria employed hinder control programs and urge the use of a common test or with similar performances to either the optimized IFAT 1 and ELISAs 1 and 2.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge Isidoro Ercoli and Marco Quispe Huacho for their excellent technical assistance. This work was supported by several research projects (Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología Thematic Network 113RT0469 Protozoovac, PLATESA S20137ABI-2906, and Proyectos de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica 2011-1179 Préstamo Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo). Lucía M. Campero has been financially supported by Proyectos de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica-2012-0355 and resources from Immunoparasitology Laboratory. Javier Moreno-Gonzalo has been financially supported by Saluvet-Innova S.L.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Immunoparasitology Laboratory, School of Veterinary Sciences, National University of La Plata, La Plata, Argentina

    Lucía M. Campero, María C. Venturini, Gastón Moré, Andrea Dellarupe & Magdalena Rambeaud

  2. National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Lucía M. Campero, Gastón Moré, Andrea Dellarupe & Dadín P. Moore

  3. SALUVET, Animal Health Department, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Moreno-Gonzalo, Luis M. Ortega-Mora & Gema Álvarez-García

  4. Rafaela Agricultural Experimental Station, National Institute of Agricultural Technology, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Ignacio E. Echaide & Beatriz Valentini

  5. Balcarce Agricultural Experimental Station, National Institute of Agricultural Technology, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Carlos M. Campero, Dadín P. Moore & Dora B. Cano

  6. Anguil Agricultural Experimental Station, National Institute of Agricultural Technology, La Pampa, Argentina

    Marcelo Fort

  7. Veterinary Medicine Department, Rural Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Rinaldo A. Mota

  8. Veterinary Medicine and Zootechny Faculty, Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University, Lima, Peru

    Marcos E. Serrano-Martínez

  9. El Llano Technical Institute, Aguascalientes, Mexico

    Carlos Cruz-Vázquez

Authors
  1. Lucía M. Campero
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  2. Javier Moreno-Gonzalo
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  3. María C. Venturini
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  4. Gastón Moré
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  5. Andrea Dellarupe
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  6. Magdalena Rambeaud
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  7. Ignacio E. Echaide
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  8. Beatriz Valentini
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  9. Carlos M. Campero
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  10. Dadín P. Moore
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  11. Dora B. Cano
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  12. Marcelo Fort
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  13. Rinaldo A. Mota
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  14. Marcos E. Serrano-Martínez
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  15. Carlos Cruz-Vázquez
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  16. Luis M. Ortega-Mora
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  17. Gema Álvarez-García
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Contributions

G. Álvarez-García and M.C. Venturini contributed to conception and design of the study. L.M. Campero, G. Moré, A. Dellarupe, and M. Rambeaud prepared the blind-coded panel of sera. L.M. Campero and J. Moreno-Gonzalo drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to serological analysis, analysis and interpretation of data, and critical revision of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gema Álvarez-García.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Supplementary Figure 1

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) PLOT of tests relative to Pre-test information criteria of reference sera (Group 2) for all tests. (DOC 624 kb)

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Campero, L.M., Moreno-Gonzalo, J., Venturini, M.C. et al. An Ibero-American inter-laboratory trial to evaluate serological tests for the detection of anti-Neospora caninum antibodies in cattle. Trop Anim Health Prod 50, 75–84 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-017-1401-x

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