Development of an ELISA system for tick‐borne encephalitis virus infection in rodents

ABSTRACT Tick‐borne encephalitis (TBE) virus causes severe encephalitis with serious sequelae in humans. An epizootiological survey of wild rodents is effective to detect TBE virus‐endemic areas; however, limited serological diagnostic methods are available to detect anti‐TBE virus antibodies in wild rodents. In this study, ELISAs for the detection of rodent antibodies against the TBE virus were developed using two recombinant proteins, domain III of the E protein (EdIII) and subviral particles (SPs), as the antigens. As compared with the neutralization test, the ELISA using EdIII had 77.1% sensitivity and 80.0% specificity, and the ELISA using SPs had 91.4% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Furthermore, when the ELISAs were applied to the epizootiological survey in the TBE virus‐endemic area, both of the ELISAs was able to detect wild rodents with TBE virus‐specific antibodies. This is the first study to show that ELISAs using recombinant antigens can be safe and useful in the detection of TBE virus‐infected wild rodents in epizootiological research.