Shunchuan Zhang from Sichuan Agricultural University and co-authors have published a paper on the efficacy of a polyclonal antibody in the control of duck virus enteritis in Virology Journal.

Duck virus enteritis (DVE) is an acute, contagious herpesvirus infection of ducks, geese, and swans, which has produced significant economic losses in domestic and wild waterfowl, explain Zhang and colleagues. With the purpose of decreasing economic losses in the commercial duck industry, studying the unknown glycoprotein K (gK) of DEV may be a new method for preferably preventing and curing this disease. This was the first time the rabbit anti-tgK polyclonal antibody had been produced and purified.

Through the western blot and ELISA assay, the truncated glycoprotein K (tgK) has good antigenicity, also the antibody possesses high specificity and affinity.

Meanwhile the rabbit anti-tgK polyclonal antibody has the potential to produce subunit vaccines and the functions of neutralizing DEV and anti-DEV infection because of its neutralization titre, reports the Sichuan group.

Indirect immunofluorescent microscopy using the purified rabbit anti-tgK polyclonal antibody as diagnostic antibody allowed the detection of a small quantity of antigen in tissues or cells.

This approach also provides effective experimental technology for epidemiological investigation and retrospective diagnose of the preservative paraffin blocks, suggest Zhang and co-authors.

Reference

Zhang S., J. Xiang, A. Cheng, M. Wang, X. Li, L. Li, X. Chen, D. Zhu, Q. Luo and X. Chen. 2010. Production, purification and characterization of polyclonal antibody against the truncated gK of the duck enteritis virus. Virology Journal 7:241. doi:10.1186/1743-422X-7-241

Further Reading

-

You can view the full report (as a provisional PDF) by clicking here.

Further Reading

-

Find out more information on duck virus enteritis (duck plague) by clicking here.