Rapid serodiagnosis of Trypanosoma evansi in dogs by colloidal dye immunobinding assay

Trypanosoma evansi causes significant mortality in dogs. Diagnosis of T. evansi infection can be done by different diagnostic methods including wet blood film examination, stained blood smear examination, advanced serological and molecular tests. In the present study, colloidal dye immunobinding technique was developed for diagnosis of T. evansi in dogs. In this technique, the whole cell lysate antigen was coated on the nitrocellulose membrane of the flow-through device. Protein A colloidal gold was used as detector. The evaluation of the technique was performed by comparing the known positive T. evansi serum collected from dogs and known negative serum. The assay has been validated with wet blood film examination. The present test is an acceptable alternative for use in clinical laboratories which lacks the specialized equipment for screening of T. evansi infection in dogs.