Developing a coagglutination test for rapid diagnosis of the infectious pancreatic necrosis virus ( IPNV )

In this thesis, development of a coagglutination test for the rapid diagnosis of Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis virus was aimed. Sp, Ab, VR-299 serotypes of Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV) were produced and purified, followed by immunization of guinea pigs and production of antisera against these 3 serotypes. A test conjugate was prepared by uniting the cultured and sensitization Staphylococcus aureus with the antisera. Salmonid pathogens such as Infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV), Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus (VHSV) and Epizootic Hematopoietic Necrosis Virus (EHNV) were used to identify the specificity of the test and no non-specific reactions were seen. The sensitivity of the test was; approximately 105.25 TCID50/ml for the Sp and Ab serotypes and 107.75 TCID50/ml for the VR-299 serotype. The coagglutination test developed as a result of these studies was found to give ELISA and RT-PCR compliant results and it was concluded that this test had the potential to be a economic, fast and reliable method in the diagnosis of IPN virus isolated in cell culture.