Evaluation of western blotting for the diagnosis of enzootic bovine leukemia

A western blotting (WB) procedure has been developed for detecting antibodies to bovine leukosis virus (BLV) in cattle sera. Two hundred and thirty three serum samples from naturally infected cattle with BLV virus and serial bleedings from experimentally BLV infected cows were used. An agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID) was used for comparing with the results obtained by WB. The AGID positive sera showed a different degree of reactivity by WB test against the two most important viral antigens (gp51 and p24), or against one of them. Other proteins (gp30, p15, p12 and p10) were not detected with any AGID positive sera, being observed occasionally three bands corresponding to the p24 protein. Using sera obtained by BLV experimental inoculation, the antibodies directed to p24 appeared early (between the 2nd and 4th week post inoculation) and thereafter antibodies to gp51were detected in some animals. The analysis of field serum samples by AGID as compared to WB showed an agreement of 90.9%. Only 1.7% of sera were negative by AGID and positive by WB and 7.2% that were not conclusive by AGID and were defined by WB (4.2% as positive and 3.0% as negative).