Development of a Sandwich ELISA for EHEC O157:H7 Intimin γ1

PLoS One. 2016 Sep 7;11(9):e0162274. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162274. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 is a zoonotic pathogen of worldwide importance that causes foodborne infections in humans. Intimin gamma 1 (intimin γ1) is one of the most important outer membrane proteins required for EHEC's intimate adhesion to epithelial cells. Here, we generated a polyclonal antibody (pAb) and a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against intimin γ1 to develop a double antibody sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA) with increased sensitivity and specificity for measuring EHEC O157:H7. To achieve this goal, a rabbit pAb was used as a capture antibody, and a mouse mAb was a detection antibody. No cross-reactivity was observed with the other genera of pathogenic bacteria tested with the DAS-ELISA, which included Salmonella enteritidis, Shigella flexneri type 2, Listeria monocytogenes, Streptococcus suis type 2, and other 18 serotype E. coli. Detection limits of the DAS-ELISA were 1 × 103 CFU/mL for EHEC O157:H7 cultures, 1 × 104 CFU/g before enrichment, and 1 × 102 CFU/g after enrichment of contaminated samples. Field samples (n = 498) were tested using a previously established duplex-PCR method and compared to our DAS-ELISA. The DAS-ELISA had a specificity of 94.4%, a sensitivity of 91.5% and accuracy of 94.0% compared with duplex-PCR. The DAS-ELISA developed here can be applied to EHEC O157:H7 quantification in food, animal, and environmental samples.

MeSH terms

  • Adhesins, Bacterial / immunology*
  • Adhesins, Bacterial / isolation & purification
  • Antibodies, Monoclonal / metabolism
  • Ascites / metabolism
  • Cross Reactions / immunology
  • Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / methods*
  • Escherichia coli O157 / immunology*
  • Escherichia coli Proteins / immunology*
  • Escherichia coli Proteins / isolation & purification
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Sensitivity and Specificity

Substances

  • Adhesins, Bacterial
  • Antibodies, Monoclonal
  • Escherichia coli Proteins
  • eaeA protein, E coli

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Jiangsu province agricultural science and technology independent innovation funds (CX(16)1028) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572503). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.