Subsequently, after three more washes, the wells were incubated with serum samples diluted in PBS-TM (1:100) for 1 h at 37 °C, with known seropositive and seronegative samples as reaction controls. The plates were then washed six times and peroxidase-labeled anti-equine IgG, diluted in PBS-TM (1:5000), was added and incubated for 1 h at 37 °C. The reaction was developed after a new washing cycle, by adding the enzyme substrate (0.03% H2O2) and chromogen (0.01 M 2,2-azino-bis-3-ethyl-benzothiazolinesulfonic acid [ABTS; Sigma Chemical Co.]) in 0.07 M citrate-phosphate buffer (pH 4.2). The optical density (OD) was read
at 405 nm after a 40 min of incubation in a plate reader (M2e, Molecular Devices, USA). The cutoff of the reaction was determined selleckchem as the mean OD of the negative control sera plus three standard SKI-606 supplier deviations. Antibody titers were arbitrarily expressed as ELISA index (EI) values, according to the formula IE = OD sample/OD cutoff, as described previously (Silva et al., 2007). Samples with EI values >1.2 were considered positive. Statistical analyses were performed using the GraphPad Prism v. 5.0 (GraphPad
Software, San Diego, USA). Distribution of the serological positivity between the tested parasites (Neospora spp., S. neurona and T. gondii) in samples of mares and foals were analyzed by frequency distribution. Correlation between the antibody levels in mares and pre-colostral foals against the three protozoa was analyzed by the Spearman correlation test. P-values <0.05 those were considered statistically significant. Of the 181 serum samples analyzed, 21.5% (39/181; Fig. 1A) of mares in parturition were positive for Neospora spp., 33.7% (61/181; Fig. 1B) were positive for S. neurona and 27.6% (50/181; Fig. 1C) for T. gondii. Of the Samples collected from pre-colostral foals had a seropositivity frequency of 9.3% (17/181; Fig. 1A), 6.6% (12/181; Fig. 1B) and 6.6% (12/181; Fig. 1C), for Neospora spp., S. neurona and T. gondii, respectively. Assessment of the association between antibody levels against the studied protozoa revealed that 7.1% (13/181) of mares tested in parturition presented specific IgG antibodies to T. gondii and
Neospora spp., 12.7% (23/181) presented double positivity to S. neurona and Neospora spp. and 10.4% (19/181) presented antibodies to S. neurona and T. gondii. With level of IgG antibodies revealed a low positive correlation between anti-T.gondii/anti-Neospora spp. IgG (rs = 0.2386; p = 0.001), anti-S. neurona/anti-T. gondii IgG (rs = 0.5650; p < 0.0001) and anti-S. neurona IgG/anti-Neospora spp. IgG (rs = 0.2953; p < 0.0001). On the other hand, distribution between IgG levels for the three protozoa evaluated in this study from pre colostral foals revealed that double positive samples to T. gondii and Neospora spp. was 6.6% (12/181) with rs = 0.2386 (p = 0.0016), to S. neurona and Neospora spp. was 6% (11/181) with rs = 0.3367 (p < 0.0001) and to S. neurona and T. gondii was 5.