Neospora caninum is an intracellular parasite that was first recognized in dogs in 1984. The parasite is now one of the most commonly diagnosed infectious causes of abortion in cattle word wide. N. caninum is transmitted to cattle in two ways. They may be infected from eating food contaminated with oocysts from a definitive host or they may be infected in utero from an infected mother. The infection is transmitted efficiently from cow to her offspring and this can occur for generations.

Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV) is a common cause of respiratory disease among young cattle. The virus causes severe losses; the herd mortality rate can sometimes be as high as 20 %. In this study the avidity (i.e the antigen binding force) of BRSV specific antibodies was measured to see if there was a difference between antibodies produced during an acute phase of infection and antibodies produced by earlier infected animals. A commercially available ELISA-testkit against BRSV-specific antibodies was used and an incubation step with 6M urea was added. The effect of the urea is that it breaks the weak bonds between antibodies and antigen while the stronger bonds remain intact. Four different groups of animals were included in this study; seven calves that were naturally infected, three acutely infected calves with known time of infection, five cows that were seropositive during several years and four experimentally infected calves that had been a part of a vaccine trial. The results of this study showed that antibodies produced during the acute phase of an infection had a low avidity and that the avidity increased with time after infection.

Borna disease virus (BDV) is a virus with capability to cause neurological disease in several species of mammals and of ostriches. Also humans are suspected to be susceptible to the virus, as the viral RNA and antibodies against BDV have been found in some humans with psychiatric diseases, like schizophrenia and depression. In Sweden there is a disease called staggering disease in cats, associated to BDV-infection. This disease often has a fatal progress. Definite diagnosis is reached by histo-pathological and immunohistochemical examination of the central nervous system.

The aim of this study was to detect antibodies in swine serum against proteins in soy beans, wheat, oat and barley. Two methods were used: agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID), and SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting. The sera examined originated (I) from piglets younger than one week (negative control), (II) pigs from a feed trial with soy bean in a herd with PMWS, and (III) pigs inoculated with Brachyspira hyodysenteriae and Escherichia coli after being fed with soy. The AGID-test was negative concerning all examined sera which were analysed against proteins in soy bean, wheat, oat and barley. In the experiment based on immunoblot antibodies were demonstrated within all three groups of examined pigs.

This study presents a survey of the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora spp. in equids in three municipalities in Pará, a Brazilian state with the Amazonian rainforest and the Amazon River as dominating features. Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora spp. are two closely related parasitic protozoans not separated as different genera until 1988. Neospora spp.

Ticks and the diseases they transmit are of major importance throughout the world. In Uganda, cattle are the most important livestock from an economic point of view. Livestock keepers fear bi-directional transmission of tick-borne pathogens between their livestock and wild animals. This cross-sectional study was conducted to establish and compare the sero-prevalence of the tick-borne pathogen Babesia bigemina among randomly selected Ankole Long-horned cattle and European crossbred cattle on 30 farms in Kiruhura district, in two sub-counties near Lake Mburo National Park in South-western Uganda. Half of the farms were situated in close proximity to the park and thereby housed cattle with more frequent wildlife-livestock interface (Sanga), whereas the other half had less frequent contact (Kikatsi).

Hepatitis E virus, HEV, is a frequent causative agent behind, especially waterborne, infections in developing countries such as India. However, during the last years the number of non-travel-associated infections in industrialised countries, for example US, Germany and Sweden, has increased. The symptoms vary from mild with nausea to icterus and it can even be lethal. There are four different genotypes of HEV and many studies consider HEV infection to be a zoonosis. Scientists have by using phylogenetic analyses found great genetic similarity between strains isolated from humans, pigs and food, such as pork and liver, especially among viruses belonging to genotype 3.

Aim: The aim of this present study was to assess the dental caries prevalence in children and adolescents aged 3-19 in the Nordic countries, and to examine if the caries prevalence is affected by socioeconomic and cultural differences.Method: The study is a literature review based on 20 scientific medical reports based on the aim of this study.Result: Decayed missed filled surfaces (dmfs) of the 3-year-olds varies from 0.3 to 0.99 and from 0.9 to 7.3 in 5-year-old children. The Nordic 12-year-olds have similar numerical values. In Nordic 14-year-olds caries prevalence increases. In the late teens there is a reduction in caries prevalence. Children at Greenland have five times more teeth decayed than other Danish children.

Schmallenberg virus (SBV) is a novel arthropod-borne orthobunyavirus emerging in Europe in 2011 to 2012. Acute SBV infection causes diarrhoea, fever and reduced milk production in dairy cattle, but it is mainly the reproductive disorders (abortions, malformed foetuses and stillborn animals) in ruminants that have caused substantial economical losses. The prevalence of the virus outside of Europe is poorly investigated. SBV or SBV-like antibodies were detected in Mozambique in 2013, which raised interest for a similar study in Tanzania. In this study in Tanzania, blood samples were collected from 478 sheep and goats from 39 herds in 15 different villages in three districts, covering areas in the north, south and east of Tanzania. The epidemiology of the virus was investigated by tracing antibodies by ELISA and mapping of the virus by PCR was started.

Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is an intracellular enzyme involved in ?the salvage pathway? where the uncomplete parts of DNA are transformed into DNA precursors. The expression of TK1 is cell cykle specific, with the highest level during S-phase when DNA-synthesis is most active. One kind of TK1 is present in serum and an increase in TK1 activity in serum is due to either the level of DNA synthesis in the body or the number of cells dying in a state of replication. This can be used and is used as a marker for prognosis and evaluation of treatment in human patients with leukemia and lymphoma.

Determination of serum thymidine kinase 1 (TK-1) activity is used as a tumour marker in both human and veterinary medicine. TK-1 is an intracellular enzyme involved in a salvage pathway of DNA synthesis. The expression of TK-1 is cell cycle dependent and the activity increases markedly after the G1 to S transition in the cell cycle and then declines rapidly in G2. The pronounced proliferative activity in tumour cells result in a higher TK-1 enzyme activity within the cell. The fact that the increased TK-1 activity can be measured in serum makes TK-1 a useful marker in diagnostics of neoplastic diseases and it provides information regarding prognosis and treatment effectiveness. In human medicine a radioactive based test is used to determine the TK-1 serum activity.

QPrEST är en ny intern standard för absolut kvantifiering av proteiner utvecklat av företaget Atlas Antibodies AB. I en marknad där det redan finns etablerade standarder kan det vara svårt att konkurrera ut de nuvarande produkterna. Därför har denna rapport gjorts vilken består av en marknadsanalys av nuvarande standarder, statistisk undersökning av publicerade artiklar inom absolut kvantitativ proteomik samt en global kundundersökning med 35 svarande. Resultaten har legat till grund för förbättringsförslag till Atlas Antibodies AB för bättre marknadsföring och lansering av sin nya produkt, QPrEST. Slutsatsen från denna rapport är att Atlas Antibodies AB måste nischa in sin produkt till kvantifiering av ett målprotein då det är där standarden presterar bäst..

A method for intra vitam detection of bornaviral infection and diagnosis of bornaviral dis-ease in the cat is currently lacking. The aim of this work was to explore the possibility of using the proximity ligation assay (PLA), with its capacity of recognizing femtomolar con-centrations of a protein, as a method for detection of the minute quantities of antigen and antibodies that are present in the tissues and body fluids of a bornaviraly infected cat. For this purpose reliable comparative assays, in the form of an ELISA and an IFA, had to be established. When this proved impossible within the time frame of the project, the aim of the study had to be abandoned, further underscoring the need for improved means of detec-tion of bornaviral antibodies and antigen..

Ej tillgänglig fram till 29 juli 2015.

The aim of this study was to determine the Prevalence of antibodies against the intracellular protozoan Encephalitozoon cuniculi in healthy pet rabbits. Encephalitozoonosis is an important differential diagnosis to ascending infection with Pasteurella multocida in the ears since a common symptom is vestibular syndrome. Samples were collected from healthy rabbits that were brought to an animal clinic in Stockholm for some kind of prophylactic procedure. The samples were analysed by an India-ink Immunoreaction test / Carbon Immunoassay. Of 106 rabbits 7 (6.6%) were seropositve.