Affiliations 

  • 1 SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), Ronda de Toledo s.n., 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain
  • 2 Medianilla Red Deer Genetics, Benalup, Cádiz, Spain
  • 3 SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), Ronda de Toledo s.n., 13005, Ciudad Real, Spain. Christian.Gortazar@uclm.es
BMC Vet Res, 2016 Sep 05;12(1):184.
PMID: 27596591 DOI: 10.1186/s12917-016-0825-2

Abstract

Diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) in farmed red deer (Cervus elaphus) is challenging and might require combining cellular and humoral diagnostic tests. Repeated skin-testing with mycobacterial purified protein derivatives (PPDs) might sensitize or desensitize the subjects to both kinds of diagnostic tools. We evaluated the effect of repeated (every 6 months) comparative tuberculin skin testing on skin test and ELISA responsiveness in farmed red deer hinds from a TB-free herd. Eighteen 8-month old hinds were inoculated with bovine and avian PPDs and the mitogen phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), as positive control and concurrently tested by ELISA for antibodies against avian (avian PPD, aPPD and protoplasmatic antigen 3, PPA3) and bovine antigens (bPPD and MPB70). Blood serum was also sampled three weeks after each skin testing round and tested for antibodies against aPPD and bPPD, in order to detect eventual antibody level boosts. Testing took place every six months from winter 2012 until winter 2015.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.