Improving The Detection Of African Swine Fever Virus Antibodies In Serum

Sep 05, 2022

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly infectious and fatal disease of pigs. Due to the complexity of the ASF virus (ASFV) and various clinical forms of the disease, a wide range of highly effective and robust sero-diagnostic assays are required.

The use of the most antigenic ASFV proteins is highly crucial to improving sero-diagnostic assays. Currently, only a few highly antigenic recombinant proteins have been tested and validated for use as reagents in ASF sero-diagnostic assays. So far, three ELISA kits based on the recombinant proteins P72, P30, and PP62 have been approved.

In a new study published in Biosafety and Health based on the recombinant P22 protein, a highly sensitive, specific, and rapid P22 monoclonal antibody-based blocking ELISA (mAb-bELISA) assay was developed to detect serum antibodies induced by genotype I and II ASFVs to detect ASFV antibodies. A total of 806 pig serum samples were tested to evaluate the performance of the diagnostic assay. The assay was able to detect ASFV antibodies as early as 9 days post-infection.

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Video: Screening Nursery Ingredients - Kynna Crawford

In this episode of The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, Kynna Crawford, Graduate Research Assistant at South Dakota State University, discusses how Plackett-Burman designs can help screen nursery diet ingredients for early post-weaning feed intake. She explains why low intake after weaning contributes to stress and mortality, how screening trials can evaluate multiple ingredients in a single study, and how the approach can support both research and commercial nursery nutrition decisions. Listen now on all major platforms!

Click here to read the full research article: https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/...

"A single screening trial can help identify which nursery ingredients deserve deeper research for early post-weaning feed intake."

Meet the guest: Kynna Crawford / kynna-crawford-a2610a3aa is a Master's student in Animal Sciences at South Dakota State University, where her work focuses on swine nutrition and nursery pig management. Her research examines strategies to alleviate weaning stress, including dietary approaches and screening tools to identify ingredients that may promote early feed intake. Learn more from Kynna Crawford on The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.