New strip test provides rapid screening for canine Lyme disease

Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. This study was aimed at developing and preliminarily validating a colloidal gold immunochromatographic lateral flow (ICLF) strip for rapid serological screening of antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi in canine serum.

An OspC-BmpA fusion antigen was expressed in Escherichia coli, purified, and used to assemble an antigen-based ICLF strip. Analytical performance was evaluated with serially diluted Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-positive serum, interferent-containing negative sera, stability and reproducibility testing, and 500 clinical canine sera tested in parallel with a comparator ELISA.

The strip detected ELISA-positive control serum at a dilution as high as 1:64 under the tested visual interpretation conditions and showed no false-positive reactions in the tested interferent panel. Detectable performance was maintained after storage at 15-25°C for 12 months. Compared with ELISA, the strip showed a relative sensitivity of 91.00% (95% CI: 83.77-95.19%), relative specificity of 98.75% (95% CI: 97.11-99.46%), relative accuracy of 97.20% (95% CI: 95.36-98.32%), and Cohen's kappa coefficient of 0.911.

The OspC-BmpA-based ICLF strip is a rapid and simple serological screening tool for detecting antibodies to B. burgdorferi in dogs. Positive results should be interpreted together with clinical findings, exposure history, vaccination history, and confirmatory testing, when appropriate.