Federal State

Lower Saxony and Bremen

Project Title

Multiserology via Microarray: A cost-effective diagnostic tool for continuous improvement of animal health and food safety in pig farms

Project description

With regard to the occurrence of endemically occurring zoonoses and so-called production diseases in the food chain, the Regulation (EC) No 854/2004 and the EFSA (Scientific Opinion, 2011) demand for serological monitoring programmes. This claim is implemented only for Salmonella in Germany. Therefore, the aim of this study is to establish an information system for zoonotic and production diseases of pigs, which is based on serological tests. This information system should include the interests of all stakeholders along the food chain.  In these investigations a microarray will be deployed as an exemplary, serological test platform. Thus, an already existing microarray prototype should be used for detection of relevant pathogens, and should be integrated in the meat inspection system. Furthermore, the information system will be tested in practical trials with 60 pig farms. In this scenario the priority is to evaluate and to optimize the information flow. Moreover, farm specific intervention measures and control plans for food safety should be developed, and practically tested.

Final report

Download report (PDF file)

Results focusing on practiceorientation

In order to monitor the occurrence of zoonotic agents in pig herds as well as to improve herd health management, the development of new cost-effective diagnostic methods for pigs is necessary. In this study, funded by EIP-Agri, a protein microarray based assay for the simultaneous detection of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against different zoonotic agents and pathogens causing respiratory diseases in pigs was developed. The chip was first tested in a small reaction vessel (ArrayTube) and thereafter in a 96-well compatible format (ArrayStrip). On both platforms, blood serum and meat juice samples could be used as sample materials, so that samples e.g. from the German national Salmonella spp. monitoring, that are sampled at the abattoirs, could be used for microarray analysis. Among the antigens tested in this project, high test accuracy was reached for the analysis of Toxoplasma gondii and Yersinia enterocolitica and... (see final report)

Main funding source

Rural development 2014-2020 for Operational Groups (in the sense of Art 56 of Reg.1305/2013)

Project status

completed

Total budget applied for in EUR

443,807

Link 1

Practice Sheet

NUTS3 CODE

DE929