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Neospora caninum is the etiologic agent of neosporosis, which leads to economic impacts on cattle industry. The reference method for serodiagnosis of neosporosis is the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT). However, IFAT is laborious, expensive, and is not practicable in high throughput screening. In order to facilitate the serological diagnosis of neosporosis, we developed a blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (b-ELISA) based on NcSRS2 recombinant protein (rNcSRS2) and polyclonal antibodies against rNcSRS2 (b-ELISA/rNcSRS2). Compared to IFAT, b-ELISA/rNcSRS2 showed 93.7 % accuracy (98.7 % sensitivity and 88.7 % specificity), suggesting its potential as diagnostic assay to detect N. caninum antibodies in cattle sera.

Diagnosis of leptospirosis by PCR is hampered due to the presence of substances on biological fluids. Here, we report an immunomagnetic separation step prior to PCR which improved the detection of Leptospira spp. in blood and urine samples from dogs. It resulted in a significant improvement on sensitivity for diagnosis of canine leptospirosis.

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