Development and Standardization of Indirect ELISA for African Swine Fever Virus Using Recombinant p30 Protein Produced in Prokaryotic System

African Swine Fever (ASF) is a viral disease in pigs with major impacts on production and the economy. The development of highly sensitive and specific detection tools would enable early identification. Since the p30 protein is highly conserved in the virus, the objective of this study was to produc...

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Authors: Cerriteño-Sánchez, José Luis|||0000-0002-5286-3911, García-Cambrón, José Bryan, Zavala-Ocampo, Perla Lucero, Ganges, Llilianne|||0000-0002-8644-3560, Cuevas-Romero, Julieta Sandra|||0000-0002-4030-5760
Format: article
Publication Date:2025
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:322300
Online Access:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/322300
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.3390/vetsci12100995
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:P30
African swine fever
Synthetic gene
Recombinant protein
Serovigilance
Description
Summary:African Swine Fever (ASF) is a viral disease in pigs with major impacts on production and the economy. The development of highly sensitive and specific detection tools would enable early identification. Since the p30 protein is highly conserved in the virus, the objective of this study was to produce the p30 protein in a prokaryotic system and develop a highly sensitive and specific indirect ELISA to identify antibodies against ASFV. Our results indicate a good production yield and a good immunogenic response in a murine model. The developed ELISA showed high sensitivity and specificity with a good kappa index using reduced amounts of antigen and low conjugate titers, indicating that the test could be efficient for ASFV detection and economical for future commercialization. African Swine Fever (ASF), caused by the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), is a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease with high mortality (≈100%) in pigs and is considered the most devastating disease to date. Given the importance of this disease, we aimed to assess the use of the recombinant p30 protein as the sole antigen for the development of an accurate and precise ELISA test (iELISA) for the virus. The recombinant p30 protein (r p30) was produced in a bacterial expression system using a SUMO-tagged expression vector. Protein expression was confirmed by Western blot analysis and purified using affinity chromatography. Antigenicity was evaluated in CF-1 mice, which demonstrated the ability to generate high levels of specific antibodies. The r p30 showed a sensitivity of 95.6% when used in the development of iELISA, a specificity of 92.3%, and a kappa index (κ) of 0.836. Furthermore, reference sera (OIE-ASF) were used to validate the assays, and the results demonstrated an excellent capacity to detect ASF antibodies using only the r p30 antigen up to a serum dilution of 1:100. The inter- and intra-assay variability coefficients were 4.27% and 4.85%, respectively, demonstrating that the assay was accurate and reproducible, allowing its use in seroepidemiological analyses for ASF surveillance.