Gammaherpesviruses in the genus Macavirus establish clinically unapparent persistent infections in reservoir species. Transmission of some of these viruses, including alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AlHV-1) and ovine herpesvirus 2 (OvHV-2), to clinically susceptible species in the order Artiodactyla can result in malignant catarrhal fever (MCF), a usually fatal lymphoproliferative disease. Serology can be used to identify MCF virus (MCFV)-infected carrier animals. However, all current serological assays utilize AlHV-1 antigens, thus none is specific for OvHV-2. In situations where sheep and other MCFV carriers are present, such as in zoos and game farms, an OvHV-2-specific assay would determine if OvHV-2 is present in the population. In this study, a recombinant protein containing a truncated OvHV-2 Ov8 glycoprotein was expressed and evaluated as a suitable target antigen to specifically detect OvHV-2 infection using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A competitive inhibition (CI)-ELISA that detects an epitope conserved among all MCFVs was used to categorize, as positive or negative, sera from 205 domestic sheep. The Ov8 assay showed 100% diagnostic sensitivity, 98.97% diagnostic specificity, 99.07% positive predictive value, and 100% negative predictive value and very high agreement (kappa = 0.990 and 95% CI = 0.971-1.000) with the CI-ELISA. Sera from animals infected with MCFVs other than OvHV-2 did not cross-react with Ov8 (100% negative predictive value). These data support the use of the Ov8 ELISA as an OvHV-2-specific diagnostic assay.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 January 2019.
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