The effect on kaolin adsorption of serum of the virus neutralization and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays of antibody to bovine herpesvirus 1

Abstract

Two procedures have been used for measuring antibody titres to bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV1): the serum neutralization (SN) test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). One hundred and thirty-two sera selected for their low SN titres were tested both unadsorbed and after adsorption with kaolin to determine the effect of kaolin on the titres. With ELISA, the titres of unadsorbed and kaolin adsorbed were not significantly different but with the SN test many treated sera, originally with weak positive titres, became negative after kaolin adsorption. Thus, if the ELISA results are specific for BHV1 antibody then the SN test findings suggest that treatment of sera with kaolin, rather than removing a viral inhibitor, removes a substance from the serum which potentiates SN antibody. This in turn indicates that low SN titres (reciprocal of titre less than or equal to 4, for instance) are probably specific for BHV1 SN antibody whether or not they are abolished by kaolin treatment of the serum.