Production of Polyclonal Antibodies (IgY) Against Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Serotype: O, A and Sat-2) in Ethiopia by Using Layer Hens

Abstract

Ephrem Shimelis, Shimels Tesfaye, Fanos Tadesse, Tsion Bilata and Jan Paeshuyse

The use of chickens as experimental animals in laboratory for polyclonal antibody (IgY) production has increased in recent times, as its specificities to mammalian antigen, animal welfare (non-invasively extracted from egg yolk), high antibody per ml, very low cost and short turnover of production. The present study was aimed to produce IgY polyclonal antibody against the three Foot-and-Mouth disease viruses’ serotypes (O, A and SAT2) in Ethiopia by immunization of laying hens with the locally inactivated the same serotypes of Foot-and-Mouth disease viruses. At day 14, 21 and 28 post immunization, the eggs and serum were collected and the IgY polyclonal antibodies were extracted from the chicken egg yolk by using Polyethylene Glycol (PEG 6000g) precipitation method. The presence of the IgY polyclonal antibodies against the selected Foot-and- Mouth disease viruses’ serotypes were detected by the Prio- CHECK® FMDV NSP-ELISA kits), in which the mean percent of inhibition of the IgY (10 ± 8.9, 8.6 ± 6.9 and 13.46 ± 9.8, respectively at day 14, 21 and 28 post-immunization) and of the serum (0, 4.7 ± 3 and 6.7 ± 5.9, respectively at day 14, 21 and 28 post-immunization). In-vitro challenging were done by virus neutralization test of the three serotypes of FMDV (O, A and SAT-2) and the neutralization titers were measured with (TCID log10) of IgY (1.83, 2.1, and 2.07) and of serum (0, 1.9 and 1.84), respectively at day 14, 21 and 28 post immunization. The egg yolk IgY and serum antibody were significant difference only when compared by the FMDV serotypes (P-Value < 0.05) The study finding indicated that chicken egg yolk antibody (IgY) production could be the best alternative to the other mam- malian laboratory animals as egg yolk-based antibody production reduce the stress and bleeding during the blood collection, high antibody titer and low cost, easy to manage and handle chickens.

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