Development of monoclonal antibody capture ELISA for the detection of antibodies against transmissible gastroenteritis virus

Transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) is a disease confined to pigs of all ages, and can be a significant cause of economic loss in breeding herds, primarily because of the very high piglet mortality. The causative agent is a coronavirus, an enveloped positive strand RNA virus and closely related but non-enteropathogenic porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCV). Although the TGEV has declined with its innocent relative, PRCV, further genome changes could not be excluded. Therefore, the herd-level immunity against this virus is important for the prevention of disease and should be carefully monitored. The aim of this study is to develop monoclonal antibody capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (MAC-ELISA) which can rapidly and accurately determine a large numbers of serum samples for surveillance purpose, and to compare the ELISA with a TGEV-specific serum neutralization test. The MAC-ELISA was sufficiently achieved, and the comparison with the virus-specific serum neutralization assays for 713 sera from pig farms showed a high correlation ($r^2=0.812$, P<0.001). The specificity and sensitivity of MAC-ELISA for the serum neutralization test 91.9% and 91.6%, respectively, which means that the antibody detected by the MAC-ELISA could be said to be protective antibodies. In conclusion, the developed MAC-ELISA would be very helpful in evaluating protective antibodies against TGEV.