Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a neglected tropical disease with dogs serving as reservoirs for one of its etiological agents, Leishmania infantum. In Brazil, VL control involves culling of seropositive dogs, among other actions. However, the most employed serological tests lack accuracy, and are not able to detect canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) during the early stages of infection. Early detection of CVL is highly desirable in order to shorten the contact time between the infected reservoirs and the vectors. In this study, we investigated the ability of two multiepitope proteins, PQ10 and PQ20, to detect CVL at earlier stages than currently employed methods, including ITS-1 conventional PCR. Using serum samples from naturally infected dogs, we observed that ELISA-PQ10 and ELISA-PQ20 were able to detect Leishmania infection at earlier time points as compared with kDNA PCR-RFLP in anti-IgG and anti-IgM assays. Using sera from experimentally infected dogs, we monitored seroconversion using multiepitope proteins, ELISA-crude antigen, as well as ITS-1 conventional and real-time PCR. While seroconversion was detected by ELISA-crude antigen in 16.6% of the dogs, multiepitope proteins were able to detect seroconversion in more than 80% of them. Moreover, the ability of ELISA-PQ10 and ELISA-PQ20 to detect Leishmania infection at earlier time points as compared with conventional PCR was also confirmed in experimental infection dogs' sera. Immunofluorescence to Babesia canis and Ehrlichia canis did not show cross-reactions with ELISA-PQ10/PQ20 positive samples. Results of real-time PCR and ELISA with multiepitope proteins were very similar, with concordances between 80 and 100%. Furthermore, our findings indicated that PQ10 and PQ20 immunoassays can be related to parasite load. ELISA-PQ10 and ELISA-PQ20 are more sensitive diagnostic tools for early CVL detection as compared with other methods They could potentially be used in screening tests due to easy execution and low costs facilities.
Keywords: Canine diagnosis; ELISA; Leishmania infantum; Multiepitope proteins; Serology; Visceral leishmaniasis.
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