Relevance of detection of immunoglobulin M antibody response in birds used for arbovirus surveillance

Abstract

Young chickens were inoculated with 5,000 PFU of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus and bled at intervals thereafter for determinations of hemagglutination-inhibiting (HI), neutralizing (N), immunoglobulin M (IgM), and IgG antibodies. HI, N, and IgM antibodies were first detected 4 days after infection, and IgG was detected 7 days after infection. All four antibodies persisted through day 90 after infection. HI, N, and IgM antibody titers remained elevated and were not cross-reactive with the related alphavirus western equine encephalitis (WEE) virus. IgG antibody titers also remained high, but heterologous reactivity to WEE virus increased with time after infection. Serum samples from sentinel chickens and wild birds infected in nature with EEE, WEE, or St. Louis encephalitis virus and submitted to this laboratory from state and local health departments were tested for IgM antibody by using anti-chicken IgM for capture and for IgG antibodies to the EEE and WEE viruses. There was essentially complete torrelation between HI, N, and either IgM (indicating recent infections) or IgG (indicating more remote infections) antibody. We conclude that the IgM antibody capture enzyme immunoassay can be used as a specific and sensitive assay to replace the routinely used HI test for detecting antibody in sentinel chickens and in young, wild birds used for arbovirus surveillance. The test is rapid and relatively inexpensive and can be performed in essentially all adequately supplied laboratories.

Serological Evidence of USUTU Virus Occurrence in North‐Eastern Italy

“…Low pathogenicity associated with USUV and related viruses, such as WNV, MVEV and SLE has already been reported in chickens. It was also shown that these animals, when infected with WNV, MVEV and SLEV, developed reliable and robust seroconversions (Maguire and Miles, 1965; Campbell and Hore, 1975; Calisher et al., 1986; Reisen et al., 1994; Komar et al., 2001), which make chickens eligible for vector competence studies and virus activity monitoring programmes (Morris et al., 1994; Komar, 2001; Broom et al., 2002a, 2002b; Blackmore et al., 2003; Quirin et al., 2004; Reisen et al., 2004). In this episode, USUV natural infection was able to elicit high and persistent neutralizing titres in a sentinel chicken, indicating that this species might be an effective sentinel animal for USUV and/or flavivirus surveillance programmes.…”

West Nile Virus Surveillance using Sentinel Birds

“…Numerous blood sampling schemes and diagnostic testing strategies have been described elsewhere. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Placement of chickens is key to success of the sentinel program. Common sense indicates that chickens should be located adjacent to mosquito resting sites and near arbovirus vector breeding sites.…”

Medically important arboviruses of the United States and Canada.

“…At present, and for the foreseeable future, the MACELISA is the serodiagnostic test of choice for determining recent human, equine (42), or avian (28,38) infections with arboviruses (if confirmed by neutralization tests) and, under the pressures of an epidemic, may be applied to single serum or CSF samples for making provisional serodiagnoses. MACELISA has the distinct advantage of being able to provide clinicians with relevant results within a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks as with most other techniques.…”