The Effect of Various Erythrocyte Species on the Detection of Avian, Swine and Canine Influenza A Viruses Isolated in Thailand

Abstract

Hemagglutination (HA) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests are conventional, well-known methods used for the detection of influenza A viruses (IAVs) and antibodies to IAVs, respectively. The sensitivity of HA and HI tests is usually affected by the compatibility of sialic acid (SA) receptors on red blood cells (RBCs) with the HA proteins of IAVs. In this study, the erythrocyte binding preferences of sixteen avian, swine and canine IAVs from Thailand were investigated using five erythrocyte sources: chicken, turkey, goose, guinea pig and horse RBCs. The results demonstrated that, turkey RBCs yielded the highest HA titers against most avian, swine and canine IAVs. Similarly, HI tests using turkey RBCs showed higher sensitivity than those using chicken RBCs for detecting antibodies against most of the Thai viruses. However, it is noteworthy that, for HI tests against recent reassortant swine IAVs, chicken RBCs were more sensitive than turkey RBCs. The significant differences were mostly observed when tested with canine IAVs. In conclusion, turkey RBCs are the most appropriate RBC source for both HA and HI tests against Thai avian, swine and canine IAVs, except for reassortant swine IAVs, for which chicken RBCs are the most appropriate in HI tests. The results of this study emphasize the importance of selecting the most appropriate RBC sources in HA and HI tests against IAVs from different animal species as well as from different geographic regions.