Seroprevalence of feline foamy virus in domestic cats in Poland

Abstract

Introduction Feline foamy virus (FFVfca) is widespread and its prevalence in naturally infected domestic cats ranges between 30% and 80% worldwide. The infection is persistent, with a sustained antibody response in FFVfca-positive cats; however to date, no defined disease or clinical symptoms have been proved to be associated with it. The goal of the presented study was to determine the prevalence of FFVfca infection in domestic cats in Poland. Material and Methods A total of 223 serum samples collected from domestic cats were tested with a glutathione S-transferase capture ELISA test to detect antibodies specific to capsid (Gag), accessory (Bet) and envelope (Env) FFVfca antigens. A Western blot test was used to confirm the ELISA results. Results The cut-off value for the Gag antigen was established by calculation and evaluation with the immunoblotting assay. The cut-off values for Bet and Env were calculated from the reactivity of Gag-negative samples. The sera of 99 cats (44%) showed reactivity to Gag, those of 80 did so (35.9 %) to Bet, while only 56 samples (25%) were reactive to Env. Only 51 (22.9%) sera were positive for all antigens. The main diagnostic antigen was selected to be Gag. A statistically significant association was found between FFVfca status and the age of the cat. Conclusions This study proved the high seroprevalence of FFVfca in domestic cats in Poland for the first time and confirmed that adult cats are at higher FFVfca infection risk than preadult cats. Its results correspond to those reported from other countries.

Occurrence of Equine Foamy Virus Infection in Horses from Poland

“…Our newly developed ELISA test, like all home-made ELISA assays, required validation to correctly identify serologically positive animals and to reduce the possibility of their misclassification. Although the ELISA is the most used technique for estimation of seroprevalence of foamy viruses [13,14,39,51] (and most other infectious agents), several studies documented that the use of immunoblot is an often more reliable technique to either confirm or deny the results obtained by ELISA [39,52,53]. We used the distribution of immunoblot results as a reference status estimation for ELISA cut-off calculation.…”